Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has secured a new lease on power, extending his party’s dominance of the country’s parliament with an unexpectedly strong election performance that decimated the opposition.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is expected to win 261 of the 465 seats in the lower house of the Diet, safely passing the majority threshold of 233.
With the support of its smaller partner, the Komeito Party, it has the stable majority needs to smoothly push through legislation.
The party lost only 15 seats, a far better result than many people expected after a grim year in which the government’s listless handling of the coronavirus pandemic drove down its support ratings to dangerous levels. The result is likely to ensure continuity in foreign and security policy, with Japan continuing to align itself closely with the United States and its western allies in resisting Chinese assertiveness.
It will save Kishida from any immediate prospect of challenges to his leadership, and he will be able to travel with confidence this week to Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference, where his attendance had previously been in doubt.
Advertisement
Having lost seats, however, he will have to prove himself to his own MPs and the country at large. “We lost, in a big way, seats that we held before the election,” Kishida said. “We need to think about that carefully. It was a tough battle.”
A handful of senior figures in the LDP lost their constituency seats, most notably Akira Amari, the second most senior person in the party, who was defeated in Kanagawa, southwest of Tokyo, by an opposition candidate from the Constitutional Democratic Party.
He remained an MP, however, as he was elected in Japan’s mixed electoral system. Only 289 MPs are elected in constituencies, with the other 176 being allocated by proportional representation from party lists.
It was clear from polls before the election that the LDP would lose some seats but Kishida, who has been prime minister for less than a month, has suffered a smaller blow than many in the LDP feared. He took over as leader after Yoshihide Suga stepped down following months of slumping public support caused by his listless handling of the pandemic.
Kishida, 64, has promised to build a “new kind of capitalism” that will reduce the country’s economic inequalities. However, whatever policies he pursues in the next few months, he will have to demonstrate to his party that he can muster the support of the country or risk the fate of Suga, who was nudged out after only a year in office.
Advertisement
The election was devastating for the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party which failed to capitalise on discontent with the government and lost some 13 of its 109 seats.
For the first time, the mainstream national parties agreed to field a single opposition candidate in key constituencies.
