Power ballot: Japanese PM’s electoral gamble
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.4 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Japan’s prime minister Takaichi Sanae has called an election three months into her term. Can she capitalise on her popularity, or will her less-popular party be punished at the ballot box? Will a new treaty curb the destruction of the oceans? And how fancy restaurants are responding to the age of Ozempic.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist |
| 0:02.0 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:13.0 | And I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:15.0 | And I'm Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:16.0 | Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:20.0 | In the book, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:30.5 | In the books about long ago pirates, on the high seas, anything goes. Turns out it's the same story for fishermen today. There just hasn't been a workable international treaty to protect the |
| 0:36.0 | high seas and their fishy bounty. |
| 0:38.2 | Until now. |
| 0:40.7 | And just in case your New Year diet involves drugs too, you'd better listen to this one. |
| 0:46.7 | The rise of weight loss medicines has led some fancy restaurants to offer tiny meals at fancy prices. |
| 0:53.5 | Sounds like an unhappy meal to me. |
| 1:01.4 | But first... |
| 1:07.6 | Japan's Prime Minister Takayuchi Sanai is taking a gamble. |
| 1:13.6 | I'm today, |
| 1:19.6 | less than 100 days into her term, she called a snap election. |
| 1:24.6 | Parliament will be dissolved on Friday, |
| 1:26.6 | and elections for the powerful lower |
| 1:28.8 | House held on February 8th. That makes it the shortest campaign in Japan's post-war history, |
| 1:35.3 | and it comes little more than a year after the previous poll. Since becoming Japan's first |
| 1:40.9 | female prime minister, Takaichi's approval ratings have been consistently high, |
| 1:46.0 | less so the group she heads, |
... |
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