TOKYO, November 18 (Sputnik) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced his decision to dissolve the lower house on Friday and call a snap parliamentary election in a month as he seeks a public mandate for his controversial initiative to hike the sales tax.
"I will dissolve the lower house on November 21. I think it is important to let people vote on our plans to increase the sales tax to 10 percent in 2017," Abe said Tuesday at a press conference.
The election is scheduled for mid-December 2014, two years ahead of schedule. The beginning of Abe's second term of office has been focused on the implementation of an audacious package of economic policies to help pull the Japanese economy out of stagnation.
In April 2014, the government increased sales tax from 5 to 8 percent, and scheduled a second tax hike for October of this year in the hopes of boosting budgetary income. As the country went into technical recession instead, Abe said on Tuesday that he would postpone the consumer tax increase by 18 months.
"The tax increase is needed to help the country recover financially so that the following generations do not have to bear the burden of our debts. But the economy is a living organism. The tax increase in April stopped GDP growth, and a new tax hike will not increase budget income," Abe admitted.
The prime minister vowed, however, that there would not be another postponement in raising the sales tax after it was put off for more than a year this time.
Abe's Liberal-Democratic Party has a majority in the lower house of the Japanese parliament, but the minister hopes apparently that a snap election will shore up popular support for his economic initiatives, dubbed Abenomics.
