In Japan’s election, voters hope for relief from rising prices Election news

Tokyo, Japan – In Tomoko Ida’s house, rice is on the menu less often than before.

Ida, a 48-year-old graphic designer and mother of two living in Tokyo, finds it hard to justify eating Japanese rice every day amid rising food prices.

“I remember a few years ago 5 kg (11lbs) of rice cost about 3,000 yen ($19), but now it costs about 4,000 to 5,000 yen ($25 to $32),” Ida told Al Jazeera.

“My family consumes about 10kg (22lbs) of rice every month and now we have no choice but to eat pasta or noodles a few times a week to save rice,” she said.

Ida is one of millions of Japanese voters worried about rising costs in Sunday’s general election, which pits Prime Minister Sane Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)-led coalition against the opposition centrist Reform Alliance.

For the average Japanese, the continued failure of wages to keep pace with rising prices has made it more difficult to make ends meet over the past year.

Inflation-adjusted wages fell 2.8 percent in November, according to Japanese government data, the 11th straight month of falling paychecks.

With Japan’s overall inflation rate hovering at 2 to 3 percent, food prices are rising very fast.

Rice prices rose nearly 68 percent last year, the result of a shortage caused by a poor harvest in 2023.

The weak yen has also caused prices of imported foods, such as coffee and chocolate, to rise sharply, reducing consumer purchasing power.

“I went to a department store to buy British tea as a treat, but it was half the price of a few years ago, so I decided not to buy it,” Nao Hanaoka, a 29-year-old IT consultant in Tokyo, told Al Jazeera.

“Last year, I planned to go abroad for a conference, but the weak yen made it impossible to pay the conference fee,” Hanaoka added.

In a poll last month by public broadcaster NHK, 45 percent of respondents said measures to lower prices would be the most important factor in their opinion.

“Prices are rising without a tangible increase in income, so people feel that even basic needs are becoming harder to afford,” Koichi Nakano, associate professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo, told Al Jazeera.

Along with rising prices, households are under increasing stress from “higher taxes and social security contributions in an aging society, along with greater spending commitments,” Nakano said.

‘Focus on strategies that improve your life’

Hard-line conservative Prime Minister Takaichi, who is seeking to extend his mandate less than four months after becoming Japan’s first female leader, has put the cost of survival at the forefront of his election campaign.

An advocate of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ultra-hard economic policy and big spending to reverse Japan’s long-running economic stagnation, has promised to suspend the country’s 8 percent tax on food and alcoholic beverages for two years if her coalition returns to power.

The Japanese leader’s tax pledge follows last year’s approval of Japan’s biggest stimulus package since the COVID-19 pandemic, injecting 21.3 trillion yen ($136bn) into the economy, focusing heavily on cost-of-living relief measures including energy bill subsidies, cash handouts and food handouts.

Takaichi’s economic plans have raised concerns about Japan’s financial stability on her watch, especially abroad, with a rapidly aging society and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 230 percent, the highest among advanced economies.

After Takaichi unveiled plans to cut consumption taxes while announcing the dissolution of the lower house of parliament last month in preparation for the election, foreign investors rushed to sell Japanese government bonds, sending yields to record highs.

Japanese voters, too, reacted to Takaichi’s plan to cut the consumption tax with skepticism over how the government would cover the estimated 10 trillion yen ($63.7bn) cost.

In an opinion poll published last month by The Nikkei newspaper, more than half of respondents said they did not believe the consumption tax break would effectively address rising prices.

In recent campaigns, Takaichi has avoided mentioning her pledge.

“Sane Takai’s position changes so quickly that it’s unbelievable,” said Hanaoka, an IT consultant who plans to vote for the centrist Reform Alliance.

“I still have time to question Takaichi’s politics and look at things, thinking, ‘Is this really true?’ But people who are really struggling don’t have time to do research in their day-to-day work,” she said.

“I wish politicians would focus on policies to improve lives 10 or 20 years from now, not just immediate cash,” she added.

Still, the merger of former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and former Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito’s Kometo appears to be Takaichi’s coalition for a comfortable victory over the opposition coalition.

An opinion poll published by The Asahi newspaper on Monday suggested that the LDP and its junior coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, are on track to win 300 seats in the 465-member House of Representatives.

With the election just days away, mother-of-two Ida said she had not decided who to vote for, but was fed up with the choice on offer.

“Honestly, I’m tired of seeing new political groups with the same faces, just changing their names,” she said.

Reported by John Power in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.