Official campaigning for a House of Representatives by-election in Nagasaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, began Tuesday with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida struggling to restore public support amid dissatisfaction over rising prices.
With campaigning for a separate contest to fill a vacant seat in the House of Councillors, or upper house, already under way, the two by-elections scheduled for Oct. 22 have become battles between the ruling and opposition forces.
The national polls are the first since Kishida revamped his Cabinet last month in an attempt to refresh the image of his government, whose approval ratings have plunged to the lowest level since he took office in October 2021.
The results could influence Kishida's decision on when to dissolve the lower house, political experts said.
Despite earlier speculation that Kishida would call a snap election in the near future, he is unlikely to do so by the end of the year due to the parliamentary and diplomatic schedules, government sources said.
One of the key issues in the by-elections is whether the public will approve of a new economic stimulus package that Kishida has pledged to map out by the end of this month to alleviate the impact of higher prices and spur wage growth in the private sector.
The focus is also on whether candidates endorsed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Kishida, can attract voters in their districts amid public criticism over the government's handling of failings in the "My Number" national identification card system.
In Sasebo, a major city within the constituency, Toshimitsu Motegi, secretary general of the LDP, expressed the ruling bloc's readiness to put together the stimulus package to address various challenges, saying, "We will swiftly put it into action."
Also in the city, Kenta Izumi, chief of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, criticized the Kishida administration's measures to curb gasoline price hikes as "insufficient," promising to "change" LDP-dominated politics.
The Nagasaki No. 4 lower house seat was left empty after Seigo Kitamura, an LDP lawmaker who served as the minister in charge of regional revitalization, died in May. The party fielded Yozo Kaneko, the son of a former farm minister and Nagasaki governor.
Meanwhile, Seiichi Suetsugu, who was a lower house lawmaker until he filed his candidacy in the race, is aiming to win for the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.
Campaigning for the upper house by-election in the Tokushima-Kochi district kicked off last week, after LDP lawmaker Kojiro Takano resigned in June in the wake of revelations he had assaulted his secretary.
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