Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pledged Saturday to make Japan “more prosperous and safer, including through tougher immigration screening, in a final appeal to voters on the eve of snap elections.
Opinion polls suggest that Takaichi’s ruling bloc, led by the Liberal Democratic Party, could romp home in Sunday’s vote and secure a two-thirds majority in the powerful lower house.
“Pushing the button for growth is the Takaichi cabinet’s job. Japan will become more and more prosperous and safer,” Takaichi, 64, told a campaign rally attended by thousands in Tokyo.
“This is the year in which we want to turn the anxieties people feel about their lives today and about the future into hope,” she said.
The arch-conservative Takaichi, a heavy metal drummer in her youth and an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, became Japan’s fifth premier in as many years in October.
This followed a string of calamitous elections for the once-mighty Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), leaving it short of a majority in both houses of parliament.
With ordinary Japanese, especially younger ones, Takaichi has enjoyed sky-high popularity ratings, becoming something of a fashion icon and a hit on social media.
Her tough talk on immigration appears, for now, to have slowed the sharp rise of the populist “Japanese first” Sanseito party, which did well in upper house elections last year.
Immigration screening “has already become a little stricter, so that terrorists, and also industrial spies, cannot enter easily,” Takaichi said Saturday.
“We must properly examine whether (foreigners) are paying taxes, whether they are paying their health insurance premiums,” Takaichi said.
She added that she wanted “a Japanese archipelago where, no matter where you live, you can live safely, where you can receive the medical care and welfare support you need, where you can receive high-quality education, and where proper workplaces and jobs exist.”
“But in order to do that, we have to make the economy stronger. Healthcare costs money. Welfare costs money. Education also requires investment. So we must build a strong economy,” she said.