Japan gears up for decisive election

Campaigning begins tomorrow in an election expected to give Prime Minister Shinzo Abe an almost unbeatable hand, ushering in the stability he needs to fix Japan's floundering economy.
Voters nationwide will go to the polls on July 21 to elect half of the 242 seats in the upper house of parliament.
With approval ratings as high as 70 per cent, Abe is expected to romp home, bagging control of both houses and leaving him with the prospect of no public vote for three years.
Supporters say he will use that political clout to force changes on cosseted and inefficient industries, like agriculture, and to cut a swathe through labour laws that businesses claim make it too difficult to hire and fire workers.

Detractors say he will abandon the economic project of his first six months and get back on his hobby horse - revising the constitution, boosting the military and re-assessing Japan's wartime history.
"We want to... Stabilise politics and bring you the actual feeling (that the economy is picking up)," Abe said in a party leaders' debate today.

The opening months of the Abe administration have seen a blizzard of economic policies, starting with vast government spending programmes and a flood of easy money from the printing presses of the central bank.
The schema - dubbed "Abenomics" - is intended to be completed with reforms that the prime minister hopes will make it easier to do business in Japan.

No party currently controls the upper chamber, although the Democratic Party of Japan have been the largest single grouping over the last few years.
However, their drubbing in December's general election when Abe's Liberal Democratic Party swept to power, combined with vicious factional infighting has left them in disarray.
They and other challengers are struggling to find a coherent message to sell to voters, who have on the whole warmed to Abenomics and the green shoots of economic growth it has nurtured.
Their only trump card may be atomic power - all the main opposition parties have pledged to end nuclear generation sooner or later, while Abe has said he wants reactors restarted once they pass new safety tests.