On Thursday, the recently inaugurated Fumio Kishida Cabinet decided to dissolve the Lower House.
This decision itself was not unexpected: When his administration began, Prime Minister Kishida announced his intention to hold elections on Oct. 31. Indeed, the term of the House of Representatives, elected in 2017, was set to expire this month anyway.
Interest this time is not so much on how many seats the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will gain, if any, but rather how many it might lose. This appears to be the main reason then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga decided not to run for the LDP presidency again after just one year in office after succeeding Shinzo Abe, who himself stepped down suddenly last September. Suga faced both doubts that the party would do well in the elections and pressure to step down.
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