Sanae Takaichi, who has proved popular as the first woman to lead Japan as prime minister, hopes to bolster her power in a snap election. But she faces hurdles.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is seeking to leverage her popularity to help her party win Sunday’s snap election as she pushes her right-wing agenda to boost her country's economy and military capabilities in the face growing tensions with

Sanae Takaichi is popular - but inflation and a diplomatic row with China weigh on voters' minds.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pushed through a record supplemental budget and is proposing tax cuts, raising questions about how the government will pay for it all.

The party has right-wing social views: it calls the second world war the “Greater East Asian War”, adopting the nomenclature of the wartime regime, and has submitted a bill to criminalise desecration of Japan’s flag (an idea also favoured by Takaichi Sanae,

Japan's first female premier has called snap elections for Sunday. She seeks a mandate for what could be sweeping changes and possibly a lurch to the political right.

People across Japan braved snowstorms to vote in the election, a major test of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s leadership. It will determine whether her party gets enough seats in Parliament to push her conservative agenda.