Abe prepares for snap-election gamble

Tokyo

SPECULATION intensified on Wednesday that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe will dissolve Parliament next week and call a snap election in mid-December, in a bid to secure a four-year mandate for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ahead of plans to push through contentious economic and political changes.

In the most explicit of a series of ground-preparing leaks this week to Japanese news media, Kyodo news agency reported an official of the ruling LDP-New Komeito coalition as saying that the Lower House election would happen on Dec 14 or 21 - two years before a poll is technically due.