参院長野補選・広島再選挙が告示　衆院選前哨戦、与野党が対決

　参院の長野選挙区補欠選挙と広島選挙区再選挙が８日告示された。菅政権発足後、初の国政選挙。与野党は秋までに行われる衆院選の前哨戦と位置付け、総力を挙げて臨む方針。結果は菅義偉首相の政権運営や衆院解散戦略にも影響を及ぼしそうだ。投開票は、１３日告示の衆院北海道２区補選と併せ、２５日に行われる。
　長野補選は立憲民主党の羽田雄一郎元国土交通相の死去に伴う。広島再選挙は、２０１９年参院選をめぐる公職選挙法違反事件で河井案里前参院議員の有罪が確定、当選無効になったことを受けたもので、ともに事実上の与野党一騎打ちの構図。政府の新型コロナウイルス対応などが争点となりそうだ。（2021/04/08-11:44）

Candidates in elections to fill two seats in Japan's House of Councillors officially started campaigning on Thursday, with the ruling and opposition camps both resolved to win the polls in the run-up to the next general election, set to be held by autumn.
   The elections for the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament will be the first parliamentary polls since the government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was launched in September last year.
   The results of the polls would likely affect Suga's handling of his administration and his strategy regarding when to dissolve the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, for a snap general election.
   The Upper House elections in the prefectural constituencies of Nagano, central Japan, and Hiroshima, western Japan, are expected to be de facto one-on-one battles between candidates backed by the ruling and opposition camps, with key issues including the Suga government's responses to the new coronavirus epidemic.
   The Upper House seat in Nagano became vacant due to the death in December 2020 of Yuichiro Hata, former land, infrastructure, transport and tourism minister, who was a member of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.