Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday sought to quell recent speculation that he may dissolve the Lower House to coincide with July's pre-scheduled Upper House poll in a political gamble often dubbed a "double election."
"The idea of dissolving (the Lower House) is nowhere on my mind," Abe told Toranosuke Katayama, co-head of conservative opposition Nippon Ishin no Kai. Abe's comment came during his first face-off in a year with opposition leaders under the Japanese equivalent of the British Parliament's Question Time.
But few are likely to take his words at face value, as it is an open secret in Nagatacho, the political epicenter of Japan, that prime ministers are allowed to publicly lie about when to call a snap election.
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