With the Olympics looming in the shadow of the pandemic, Tokyo enters the polls by Reuters

Author: Takenaka Kiyoshi

Tokyo (Reuters)-Tokyo residents went to a poll 19 days before the start of the Olympics on Sunday to select members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly because the survey showed that the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberal Democratic Party) of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is likely to win the vote.

Under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, the capital’s elections have little impact on the long-planned Olympics, but they are important as a weather vane for the House of Commons elections that need to be held before October.

Analysts said that Yoshihide Suga’s term as party chairman will expire at the end of September, and the strong performance of his party in Tokyo polls may help him to be re-elected. Considering the Liberal Democratic Party’s majority in Parliament, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party will almost certainly become the prime minister.

A 60-year-old female office worker who asked not to be named said: “I voted for a candidate who is not the Liberal Democratic Party, partly because I am opposed to hosting the Olympics, although it is too late to change.”

“But my main interest is to select candidates with more pragmatic policies, including environmental actions, not the coronavirus or the Olympics,” she said.

Voting ends at 8pm (1100 GMT)

According to a recent survey by Yomiuri Shimbun, 23% of respondents said they would vote for the Liberal Democratic Party candidate, compared with 17% and 8% of the Tokyo Citizen First Party and the Japanese Communist Party, respectively.

The Tokyo Citizen First Party hopes to host the Olympics without spectators, while the Japanese Communist Party hopes to cancel it. Suga Yoshihide once stated that he intends to host the Olympics, but if he thinks it is necessary, he will not hesitate to ban the audience.

Tokyo Citizens First is now the largest political party in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, with 46 out of 127 seats, followed by the Liberal Democratic Party with 25 seats. The regional political party formed by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike won an overwhelming victory in the last election in 2017.

The Tokyo Olympics was postponed by the virus outbreak for one year and will open on July 23.

The election was also held at the time when the Japanese pandemic was resurgence. Tokyo reported 716 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday, the highest level in more than five weeks.

“My focus for this election is pandemic measures,” a 26-year-old deaf freelance actor wrote in a note to reporters outside the polling station. He also asked to remain anonymous.

He said: “I chose a candidate who will take action to save the infected because I am worried that if I get infected, I will lose my job and income,” he declined to reveal the name of the party. “I don’t care about political parties.”