Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to Dissolve Lower House for Feb. 8 Snap Election

The Yomiuri Shimbun

19:16 JST, January 19, 2026

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will dissolve the House of Representatives on Friday for a Feb. 8 snap election to seek the public’s mandate for her Liberal Democratic Party forming a coalition with the Japan Innovation Party, she announced Monday.

“I think it is time for the people, who are vested with sovereign power, to decide on whether I should be prime minister,” Takaichi said.

She said official campaigning will start on Jan. 27, and candidacies will be filed on that day, with the election held on Feb. 8. It will be the first general election since the LDP and the JIP formed a coalition in October.

The period between the dissolution and election day will be just 16 days, the shortest for a lower house election since the end of World War II. Parties have sped up their selection of prospective candidates and formulation of campaign pledges for the short campaign period.

Takaichi said during the press conference that the threshold for victory is the ruling coalition securing a majority in the lower house, which would mean winning at least 233 seats in the 465-seat lower chamber of the Diet.

In the previous lower house election held under then Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in October 2024, the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition suffered a crushing defeat, with their combined number of seats falling below a majority.

In the upcoming general election, it is likely the Centrist Reform Alliance — newly formed between the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito — will lead the opposition challenge against the LDP-JIP coalition.

The main point of contention during campaigning will likely be measures against rising prices, an issue that voters are keenly interested in. Some parties are advocating measures against high prices such as the lowering of the consumption tax.

Debates over Takaichi’s “responsible and proactive public finance” approach on fiscal management are likely to intensify during campaigning. So are those regarding the issue of enhancing the nation’s defense capabilities by pushing ahead with the revising of the National Defense Strategy and two other security-related documents.

With the lower house election being held in February, the fiscal 2026 budget is unlikely to be passed by the end of fiscal 2025. The government and ruling parties intend to address this issue by compiling a stopgap budget.

Opposition parties are criticizing both the government and ruling parties for creating a political vacuum. “[Takaichi] takes the lives of people lightly, and there is no just cause [for holding a general election],” CDPJ leader Yoshihiko Noda said.