Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, whose new political party poses a growing threat in elections later this month, denied speculation that she would run, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Tuesday.
TOKYO: Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, whose new party is challenging Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling bloc in the Oct. 22 national election, said she would « 100 percent » not run in the poll, the latest twist in a drama giving voters whiplash.
Speculation has persisted that Koike, a former LDP member and defense minister, would resign to run for a seat in parliament needed to make a bid for the premiership.
« I have been saying I will not run for the election from the beginning, » Koike said in an interview with the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Tuesday.
« I’m 100 percent not running for the election. »
If Koike does not personally contest this election, then analysts believe she would hope her party positions itself to win the next national poll, and that she gains a voter boost from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Abe announced the snap election last week in hopes his Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition would keep its majority in parliament’s lower house, where it held a two-thirds « super majority » before the chamber was dissolved.
But Koike’s new « Party of Hope – launched just last week as a « reformist, conservative » alternative to Abe’s equally conservative LDP – has clouded the outlook amid signs voters are disillusioned with Abe after nearly five years in power.
Koike’s dilemma was whether to run for a seat now and face a backlash from voters for quitting as governor little more than a year since she defied the LDP to run successfully for the post, or risk letting a shot at the top job slip through her fingers.
