Tag: Liberal Democratic Party

Learning to fly: ex-flight attendant aims high in Japan vote

by Alastair HIMMER Agence France-Presse KOSHIGAYA, Japan (AFP) – An elderly woman hunched over a cane stares intently as Japanese political hopeful Asami Miwa greets locals in the rural voting district the former flight attendant is contesting in Sunday’s election. Waving her white-gloved hands and bowing to potential voters in drizzly Saitama, an hour north of Tokyo, the 30-year-old Party of Hope candidate is a welcome splash of color in a sepia-tinged world dominated by men in […]

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New Tokyo governor says defying party secured win

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Tokyo’s new governor Yuriko Koike on Monday credited her landslide victory to having stood up to the powers that be in Japan’s ruling party who didn’t want her to run. Koike, 64, was elected Tokyo’s first female governor in the Sunday vote, winning more than 2.9 million votes, far outpacing the nearly 1.8 million ballots cast for closest challenger Hiroya Masuda. Masuda, a former governor of Iwate prefecture in northern Japan, […]

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Japan’s Abe claims victory in parliamentary vote

by Shingo ITO TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed victory Sunday for his ruling coalition in parliamentary elections, which came despite lukewarm public support for his economic policies and wariness over amending the country’s pacifist constitution. Abe, in power since late 2012, has yet to achieve a strong recovery in the world’s third-largest economy through unconventional measures centered on massive easy money and other steps — so-called Abenomics. Voters have also […]

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