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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hopes for big win as polls open in national elections

By MARI YAMAGUCHI and FOSTER KLUG  -  AP

TOKYO (AP) — Polls opened Sunday in Japanese parliamentary elections that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hopes will give her struggling governing party a big enough win to be able to push forward an ambitious conservative political agenda.

Takaichi is hugely popular, but the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the last seven decades, is not. She called Sunday’s snap elections hoping to turn that around. She wants to make progress on a right-wing agenda to boost Japan’s economy and military capabilities as tensions grow with China.

The ultraconservative Takaichi, who took office as Japan’s first female leader in October, pledged to succeed on the job with “work, work, work,” and her style, which is seen as both playful and tough, has resonated with younger fans.

The latest surveys indicated a landslide win in the lower house for the LDP. The opposition, despite the formation of a new centrist alliance and a rising far-right, is seen as too splintered to be a real challenger.

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