Koike shakes up Japan vote

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe seemed secure in power, until Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike stepped into the election race.

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Yuriko Koike is out to challenge Shinzo Abe
(Image credit: © 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP)

"Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has never been more secure in his power," says Isabella Steger for Quartz. With the main opposition party in "total disarray" and Abe enjoying a poll boost on the back of the North Korea crisis, it is easy to see why he has decided to hold a snap election next month."That was until popular Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike, 65, stepped into the ring and announced the formation of a new political party." The former defence minister's new "party of hope" has already attracted defectors from other groupings, including Abe's own ranks.

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Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.