(Adnkronos) – The newly elected Japanese Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has called a snap election for the lower house on October 27, saying he wants to put his administration to a public vote of confidence. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has held power in Japan for 65 of the 69 years since its founding in 1955, and in all other OECD member states – mostly highly developed and democratic countries – no party has held power for so many decades. But the LDP is today grappling with serious and long-standing problems, from campaign finance scandals to its members’ suspected ties to the Unification Church, as well as a rising cost of living that continues to worry the population. Furthermore, Ishiba won the party presidency by a narrow margin: almost half of his parliamentarians are hostile to him and in the recent leadership elections they supported the ultra-conservative Sanae Takaichi. Ishiba’s challenge to win confidence in the lower house appears to be more uphill than expected, and even the polls are confirming the precariousness of the leadership of the historic party.
The victory of 67-year-old Ishiba in the LDP leadership race had led to belief in the start of a new course. Ishiba was in fact considered the moderate alternative to the ultra-conservative Sanae Takaichi, his main rival. A soft-spoken former banker with a hobby of building model warplanes and ships, Ishiba has in recent months declared himself in favor of same-sex marriage, reigning empresses and the right of married couples to use different surnames – social and cultural changes that his party is historically opposed to. The prime minister had also promised to crack down on lawmakers involved in financial scandals and dealings with the Unification Church. However, perhaps to appease his right-wing opponents within the LDP, after his election as prime minister, Ishiba backtracked on many promises, starting with the law on spousal surnames – in which women almost always take their husband’s name – and the ban on gay marriage, which “requires further examination.” He declined to comment on any reform of Japan’s male-only throne succession laws.
The main opposition force is represented by the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), which is rising in the polls a week before the vote. Just a week ago, it seemed highly likely that the LDP could retain its majority, helped by an expected low turnout and a once again divided opposition. Last weekend’s poll by the Kyodo news agency gave the LDP 26.4%, well ahead of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic party at 12.4%. However, the latest poll published gave the CDP 14.1% of the vote in the proportional representation, which remains less than the 22.6% obtained in the poll by Ishiba’s party, but with a significant reduction in the gap between the two political forces, which in a week went from 14 to 8.5 percentage points. As for the first-past-the-post constituencies, 33.2% of those interviewed said they would support opposition-backed candidates, while only 24.6% plan to vote for government candidates: a reversal of the balance of power compared to the previous survey of October 13.
According to polls published last week by the Nikkei newspaper and the Kyodo news agency, the ruling LDP may not win an absolute majority of seats in the lower house. The projections indicate a situation of unprecedented political instability since 2009, when the LDP was forced to cede government for the first and only time since World War II to the Democratic Party, the then main progressive force. The LDP needs 233 out of 465 seats in the lower house to secure an absolute majority. As of October 9, the day the House dissolved, the party alone held 256 seats. However, according to the Nikkei poll, Prime Minister Ishiba’s party will only win 30% of the 289 seats allocated on a first-past-the-post basis in single-member constituencies. Of the 176 seats allocated under the proportional representation system, which divides the country into 11 regions, the LDP will likely win fewer than the 72 seats it won in 2021.
The LDP and Komeito, a Buddhist-based party with which it has governed in recent years, aim to collectively maintain a majority in the lower house, while the main opposition party, the CDP, has set itself the goal of breaking the majority and to establish itself as the largest party in the new arrangement. According to polls, it would appear to be on track to increase its number of seats from its previous 98, leading in some key areas in Hokkaido, Tokyo, Aichi and other areas. The conservative populists of the Japan Innovation Party are favored in many races in Kansai, including Osaka, but trail in all other regions.
