Abe vows to fight hard in election

Japanese PM turns to voters as economy slides into recession

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that he will fight hard in a looming general election shortly after the dissolution of the parliament's lower house.

Abe, who is also president of the Liberal Democratic Party said his decision to dissolve the lower house aims at letting the Japanese public judge his choice to delay a second sales tax hike. He criticized the major opposition Democratic Party of Japan for wanting to increase its seats in the chamber but refusing to engage in honest debate over economic policies.

"What the DPJ wants to do is add seats in the lower house. It is mob thinking, and the result will be chaos", like what occurred when the DPJ controlled the government, Abe said after Bunmei Ibuki, speaker of the House of Representatives, announced the dissolution.

Abe also said he will be in the front line of the election, stressing that the more seats the LDP could secure, the more the growth of the economy and people's livelihoods could be guaranteed.

Government data showed that the world's third-largest economy's growth shrank an annualized 1.6 percent in the June-September period for the second straight quarter of decline, suggesting the country had again slipped into technical recession.

Abe admitted on Tuesday that the Japanese economy has yet to return to the path of recovery.

He has said that he will step down if the current ruling bloc could not secure a majority of seats in the election.

Yukio Edano, secretary-general of the DPJ, however, slammed Abe's decision to dissolve the lower house as meaningless, saying so-called "Abenomics" only helped Japan's stock market, leaving a heavier burden on the people.

Recent split

Edano said the DPJ welcomed other parties' lawmakers to join in, referring to the recent split of a small opposition party - Your Party - and adding that the DPJ will cooperate with other opposition parties on candidates for the election.

Meanwhile, the head of the DPJ, Banri Kaeda, said the LDP had showed its arrogance, and arrogance always leads to failure - referring to the LDP's lower house lawmakers' shouts of "Banzai" that disrupted Ibuki's announcement.

Kaeda said the election is an opportunity to correct Abe's policies.