00:00Japan's snap election was supposed to be a gamble.
00:02Instead, Prime Minister Takaichi has secured a historic victory, giving her the biggest
00:07mandate of any Japanese leader since World War II.
00:10For Takaichi, this changes everything.
00:12Up until now, after she became Prime Minister last October, she had a very weak position
00:17in both Houses of Parliament.
00:19Now she has not just a majority, not just a mandate from the public, but a two-thirds
00:24majority in the lower house.
00:26That gives her an almost total power to enact her vision for the country.
00:31This was a vote on Takaichi herself, and Takaichi made that decision to make it almost a referendum
00:38on whether she should be in charge and whether she should have a mandate.
00:41There wasn't really any policy issue that was up for discussion.
00:44It was a question to voters.
00:47Do you want Sanaya Takaichi to continue in power or not?
00:51And they responded overwhelmingly with a yes.
00:54The stock market was absolutely delighted with the news.
00:57The Nikkei 225 stock average had one of the best days in recent memory.
01:01There was a slight rise in bond yields, and the yen actually strengthened somewhat.
01:06There's a couple of things that people are going to be paying attention to next.
01:10First of all, we want to see what Takaichi's actual policies have been.
01:14She's going to have to make those very clear to the public now, and she's not going to have
01:19any excuses to not put them into place.
01:22Secondly, she is going to have a trip to Washington in March to meet President Donald Trump.
01:28So we're going to see a further kindling of that relationship.
01:32And then, of course, this result is going to be a boost for Takaichi against the pressure,
01:39economic and political that Beijing has been enacting on Japan ever since she made comments
01:45about the potential for Japan to be drawn into a conflict over Taiwan last year.
01:51Now she is going to have a much stronger position domestically from which to push back at that coercion.
01:58So she is going to have an actual version.
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