Japan goes to the polls Dec. 16 to shape key policies—including the future of nuclear energy—in the first nationwide election since last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster.
Japan goes to the polls Dec. 16 to shape key policies—including the future of nuclear energy—in the first nationwide election since last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster.
Social security, another key election issue, will also be on the minds of voters.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda cited the future of nuclear energy as a top campaign issue when he dissolved the Lower House on Nov. 16 for a snap election.
"The election will ask the nation whether to choose a party that will reduce nuclear power to zero or a party that will continue the past energy policy," he told a news conference.
Noda's ruling Democratic Party of Japan promised to suspend all nuclear reactors by the end of the 2030s.
Your Party, a small opposition party, said it will halt all reactors by the end of the 2020s, and New Komeito, another opposition party, said it aims to do the same "as soon as possible."
Still, the three parties all plan to allow idled reactors to be brought back online before the nuclear-free goal is achieved.
The Tomorrow Party of Japan, on the other hand, will not approve the reactivation of those reactors.
The anti-nuclear party, formed days before the official campaigning period started on Dec. 4, said it will decommission all reactors within 10 years to "graduate from nuclear power generation."
The Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party both promised to suspend all reactors immediately.
The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the newly formed Japan Restoration Party are cautious about moving away from nuclear power.
The LDP has effectively postponed a decision on nuclear energy, promising only to "establish the best mix of sustainable electricity sources within 10 years."
The party, which promoted nuclear energy for decades before it lost power in 2009, is leading the DPJ in opinion polls. It will likely maintain its past energy policy if it returns to power.
LDP President Shinzo Abe has criticized calls for a nuclear phaseout "irresponsible."
And though the Japan Restoration Party said in a party document that "nuclear power generation at existing reactors would fade out by the 2030s," pro-nuclear party leader Shintaro Ishihara said he will review the expression. Acting party leader Toru Hashimoto, who once advocated scrapping nuclear power, also said the document is not part of the official campaign platform.
All 50 nuclear reactors were taken offline after triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which was struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. Only two reactors have since been restarted.
About 160,000 people have not been able to return to their homes in Fukushima Prefecture 21 months after the nuclear crisis unfolded.
How to fund social security programs has emerged as another key election issue because legislation to double the consumption tax rate to 10 percent by October 2015 was enacted in August.
The Noda administration argued that the hike is necessary to cover the nation's snowballing social security costs and gained cooperation from the LDP and New Komeito.
Social security spending, which amounts to 26 trillion yen ($311 billion), or 29 percent of the 90-trillion-yen government budget for fiscal 2012, is expected to increase by 1 trillion yen each year.
On Dec. 16, voters will elect representatives to the 480-seat Lower House, 300 in single-seat districts and 180 in proportional representation constituencies.
A total of 1,504 candidates, a record under the current Constitution, are running for seats, with 907 registered both for single-seat and proportional representation constituencies.