00:00one of the stories we've been following on France 24. This is apropos. Voters in Japan head to the
00:07polls on Sunday for snap elections. Surveys suggest the ballot will result in a resounding
00:12win for the outgoing Prime Minister's party. The arch-conservative has been enjoying a honeymoon
00:18start since becoming Japan's first female premier, with more on the one-time heavy metal drummer and
00:24long-time admirer of Margaret Thatcher's appeal to younger voters. Here's Yinka Oyetari.
00:35This is the black tote often carried by Prime Minister Sunai Takeuchi, now sold out, with young
00:41people rushing to grab it. She's the first female Prime Minister, so a lot of young people like myself
00:48are curious about what kind of apparel she uses. I think it would be nice if I could use the same
00:52things as her, so I was curious about it and I looked it up. It's not just her style that's got
00:58people hooked. From what she eats to what she uses to scribble notes in Parliament, it's all become a
01:04hot topic, part of the so-called Takaichi mania sweeping Japan. One poll shows her popularity
01:11among voters under 30 at 90 percent ahead of Sunday's snap election, while she'll be seeking
01:17a majority for her Liberal Democratic Party. If she gets it, she'll be hoping to push through her bold
01:23spending plans to shake up Japan's economy. Her widespread appeal among youth is surprising,
01:29giving her staunchly conservative views.
01:31Well, actually being more popular than the past leaders of the LDP is not so difficult, given that
01:39all of them, not even most of them, but all of them have been middle-aged, boring men. And so in some ways,
01:48Takaichi, you know, cut a fresh image.
01:53That fresh image is making waves online. Her social media presence has been key to her appeal.
02:01Posts of her drumming to K-pop and singing happy birthday to Italy's Prime Minister have gone viral.
02:09But with inflation rising, triggered partly by her spending promises,
02:14it's unclear whether her popularity will translate into a big win on Sunday.
02:20For more, let's bring in Amy Catalina, Associate Professor of Politics at New York University.
02:26Thanks so much, Amy, for being with us on the programme. We saw her there playing the drums.
02:30We saw images of her handbag. For you, though, what exactly explains Takaichi's appeal,
02:37particularly among younger people? It is interesting, given her staunchly conservative views, isn't it?
02:46Yes. And she also had a few difficulties after she became LDP leader. She had sort of a very short
02:54period in which she won the party's presidential election, and then she had to get sworn in as
03:00Prime Minister. And at that time, she had her coalition partner, her party's coalition partner
03:05of 26 years, sort of walk away from her and say, you know, we're not going to be in the coalition
03:09anymore. We're going to draw a line under all the cooperation that we've done so far. So I think
03:14quite a few people were expecting that that stumble was going to be significant. But she quickly rallied.
03:20She put a coalition together with the Japan Innovation Party. She became Prime Minister.
03:24And she's really gone from strength to strength. And she's maintained this consistently high support
03:29rate, which is really unheard of. Yeah.
03:33And the polls are looking good for her heading into the election. Do you think victory is inevitable
03:38here? Is her appeal actually cross-generational?
03:43Yeah. So I think it's hard, like it's, there are three days left. So if we assume that nothing is
03:52dramatically going to change about the situation in the next three days, then yeah, I think she's
03:57going to do very well. Her party's going to do very well in the election. And it's really just a
04:00question of how many seats her party wins. So, and now starting off relatively low base, in 2024,
04:09the party did very badly in the election, only won 191 seats out of 465 members of the lower house.
04:16And she is really on track. You know, they could win, they could get up to sort of 261 seats. That's
04:24an absolute majority. So that would give her party, if she gets 261 seats, that would mean that her
04:30party has a majority of seats in the lower house, but it also has enough numbers to control the 17
04:37parliamentary committees in terms of they would be able to elect the chair of the committee.
04:40And also they'll be able to have a majority in all the committees. And it's plausible that that
04:44would happen. So in that sense, her gamble in calling an election, it looks like it's going
04:50to be paying off because this election was called lower house members are only one year and three
04:56months into their four year term. So she really decided, I think, in calling this election that
05:01she was going to do the best. Now it's going to be the best outcome for her party if she calls it now,
05:06rather than waiting for later. And in the campaign, she's just done, I think, very well. She's
05:11avoided sort of major mistakes. Her party is actually her party is not so popular, but she
05:18herself is very popular. So she has sort of really high support rates, as you said, across the
05:23generations, age age groups. It's vastly eclipsing the support of other parties. And now we have a
05:31situation where there are many so-called floating voters in Japanese elections, people who their
05:37allegiances to parties are more fickle. And in every election, they can change who they vote for.
05:42But in this election, large share of these so-called floating voters are looking like they're going to
05:47support the LDP on Sunday. So she's really in an enviable position. And the question really is just
05:53how many seats she's going to be able to win. And of course, she was barely two weeks into the job,
05:58Amy, when she suggested that Japan would intervene militarily if China moved to invade,
06:04hypothetically speaking, Taiwan. Is her tough stance with China helping to bolster that support
06:11heading into this vote?
06:13It's possible, yes. It is possible that she's made this statement in the parliament to the extent
06:20that if there was a situation to develop across the Taiwan Strait, where China was to use military
06:26force, then that could develop, she said, that could develop into a situation that's called a
06:31survival-threatening situation for Japan. That's the terminology she used. She said it could develop
06:37into a survival-threatening situation. And we know that in Japanese legal discourse, a survival-threatening
06:43situation is one in which collective self-defense is able to be exercised, meaning that Japan is able
06:50to come to the aid of an ally if it was under attack. And after she made that statement, there was a
06:56lot of, the Chinese government put a lot of pressure on Japan in a variety of ways. And yeah, her support
07:02rate stayed very robust through that. So I would say that her stance toward China is getting some
07:09support, although we don't know that for sure, but it certainly looks that way.
07:13And when it comes to those ongoing tensions with Beijing, do you think if she wins, you know, as is
07:19widely expected, would a strong victory help to kind of diffuse the situation somewhat with China? Or what
07:27kind of an impact or what consequences do you think there might be there?
07:32Yeah, I think some sort of political commentators and pundits are making the case that
07:38a strong victory for her might cause the Chinese government to change their stance a bit and
07:45maybe stop pressuring Japan in a few ways. But I don't know for sure. I think that's one possible
07:52scenario.
07:53And Amy, she also has been talking tough when it comes to immigration, hasn't she? Is that
07:57eating into the support that perhaps the populists might have been hoping to secure in this election?
08:04Is it having an impact there on what the, you know, Japanese First Party might have been hoping for
08:10heading into this ballot at the weekend?
08:12Yes, for sure. But I think her stances on policy in this election have actually been
08:18eating into a variety of the opposition party's stances. So it's not just this Sanseito, this
08:23Japan First Party. She's kind of taking the wind out of the sails of several parties with
08:30her sort of adroit policy manoeuvring, I think. So, yeah, she's saying that, you know, she's
08:37sort of making immigration. She's sort of saying, yes, you know, we are going to take steps in
08:42that direction. You know, one of the things she's talking about is greater scrutiny on
08:47foreigners' purchases of land in Tokyo. So she's sort of signalling to the populist party
08:53and the populist party supporters that she cares about that issue and her party will do
08:57things in that direction. And she's also talked about tax cuts, which is she sort of put that
09:03on the agenda. Last summer in the upper house election, the party shied away from actually
09:08talking about a consumption tax reduction. Instead, they focused on handouts. But this
09:13time, at the beginning of the campaign, she signalled that she would take very seriously
09:17the fact that many voters are struggling with cost of living and inflation. And she said that,
09:23you know, we would take it under advisement to consider a two-year break in the consumption
09:28tax on food. So she's sort of manoeuvring, I think, quite well. She's sort of, I think I would
09:35maybe use the word accommodating, or she's sort of taking in some of their policy preferences.
09:39And that's having an effect, I think, of making the election even more about her and her party.
09:45And so it's potentially likely to sort of blur the light. Maybe voters are sort of thinking,
09:51yes, the LDP is going to respond to these policy concerns I have. Therefore, maybe I don't need to
09:56vote for these parties. I can just vote for the LDP. And after all, the LDP has been in power for
10:0266 of the past 70 years in Japan. So they clearly have, they have experience in government,
10:08you know, vastly, that vastly eclipses the experience that some members of the opposition
10:13have, virtually all the opposition parties. So she's sort of been quite well, she's been managing
10:21these policy issues quite well in the campaign as well.
10:23And when it comes to that consumption tax that you refer to and the kind of measures that she's
10:28talking about introducing to help reduce inflation, is that causing jitters at all among
10:34investors heading into the election on Sunday?
10:39It's having a lot of different impacts, I think, meaning that there are the focus among vote,
10:49to the extent to which there's been scrutiny on that, it's been to focus on, the focus is on
10:54how they're going to fund it. So obviously, a consumption tax decrease is going to, you know,
10:58cost a lot of money. And the focus has been on, at least initially, in the early stages of the
11:04campaign, which party has a better plan for doing that. But over the course of the campaign,
11:10I think that is also, I haven't seen as much focus on that. So I think the party, one of the reasons for
11:18that is that her own focus on the consumption tax, the two-year break, she sort of stopped mentioning
11:23that, potentially because she sort of thought, maybe I don't need that, because I'm so popular
11:28and everything's going well. So, yeah.
11:32Amy, thank you.
11:33But there will be, it will be, you know.
11:36Sorry for cutting across, you definitely want to watch, and we'll have all eyes on Japan
11:40to see how the election turns out for her on Sunday. Thanks so much for being with us on the
11:44programme. That's Amy Catalina, Associate Professor of Politics at New York University.
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