The Japanese general election of 2017 got interesting exactly three-and-a-half hours before prime minister Shinzo Abe called it.
With a 36-point lead in the opinion polls, and the opposition Democratic party in utter disarray, Mr Abe has strong reasons for an early ballot. But if he thought everything would go his way then Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike’s press conference — timed to upstage the prime minister’s election launch — will have disabused him.
Word was that Ms Koike would announce the name of a baby panda born in Tokyo’s Ueno zoo (a bigger news story for much of Japan’s media than the general election). “There are lots of announcements of names today,” opened Ms Koike. Then rather than name the panda, she named her new “Party of Hope”, and declared herself its leader.