2026 POLLS: Election-Related Biz Rushing to Prepare for Lower House Poll

Tokyo, Jan. 24 (Jiji Press)--Election-related businesses in Japan are scrambling to prepare for the Feb. 8 House of Representatives election, which is set to be held just 16 days after the lower chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament, was dissolved.

The 16-day window is the shortest lead-up to a general election since the end of World War II, and businesses are receiving an influx of orders from those planning to file candidacies.

"It's too abrupt," Koichi Ishibashi, 60, head of a campaign car rental firm in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, said. "I'm getting more calls than ever before."

Ishibashi said that his company's roughly 70 campaign cars, which are equipped with loudspeakers and are driven around constituencies to appeal to voters during the campaign period, were booked within three days after news reports that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was considering calling a snap election. The firm is currently rushing to put signboards on the vehicles.

"We will run well-maintained campaign cars despite there being little time," Ishibashi said.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]