Japan’s Voters Reject the LDP – and the Opposition Too

On September 27, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Ishiba Shigeru as the party president – and, by extension, Japan’s prime minister. Ishiba immediately called for a snap election, hoping to secure a public mandate.

It didn’t go well.

The LDP and its longtime ally Komeito suffered major losses in the voting on October 27. While their coalition still came away with the most seats of any bloc, they lost their outright majority and (as of this writing) are scrambling to find another partner or two to form a government.

The LDP won just 191 seats, with Komeito adding an extra 24. That brought the coalition total to 215 – down from its previous seat count of 279, and well short of the 233 needed to constitute a majority in Japan’s House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Japan’s largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) won 148 seats, 52 more than in the last election. CDP leader Noda Yoshihiko declared victory: “Our goal was to break the ruling party’s majority, so the fact that we have achieved it is a huge accomplishment.”

However, the CDP does not have enough seats to form a government either. That means some of the smaller opposition parties are in a position to play kingmaker. Nippon Ishin no Kai, a conservative opposition party, holds 38 seats in the new parliament; Ishin had previously pledged not to join an LDP government but there is no love lost between it and the CDP.

The Democratic Party for the People (another center-right opposition party) won 28 seats, Reiwa Shinsengumi (a left-wing party) won nine, and the Japanese Communist Party (which has in the past allied with the CDP’s previous incarnations) won eight.

For either the LDP or the CDP to form a government, they would need to win over one or two additional parties to join a coalition.

This election marked the first time the LDP has lost its majority since 2009. Back then, the LDP was actually forced out of government entirely; this time, Ishiba has said he intends to remain as prime minister, but that depends on the LDP’s coalition building efforts.

“We have received an exceptionally harsh judgment from the public,” Ishiba said as the results came in. “… We must humbly and solemnly accept this outcome, reflect sincerely and work toward a complete renewal of our party.”

The LDP’s dismal performance was indeed a reflection of voter skepticism that the party can truly reform itself. Over the past three years, the LDP has been plagued by headline-grabbing scandals related to the nexus between money and influence in Japan’s political sphere. First came revelations of some LDP politicians’ cozy relationship with the Unification Church, despite its record of coercing members for financial donations. Then a political fundraising scandal broke, revealing that LDP factions had essentially let members pocket excess – and unreported – income from fundraising events once their quota was met.

While Prime Minister Kishida Fumio declined to run for re-election in the LDP presidential race to take responsibility for the backlash, the general public was clear that their disapproval was not pegged to Kishida personally. The anger extended to the LDP as a whole. The party’s legislative attempts to reform Japan’s political fundraising law, and its decision to abolish factions, were widely viewed as too little, too late by the public.

The LDP made a gesture toward reform by electing Ishiba, a long-time maverick who had tried and failed to win the top spot four times before. Yet after he assumed office Ishiba appeared to walk back his more iconoclastic tendencies, raising doubts that he would be able to pursue a truly different agenda.

Opinion polls on party preferences were remarkably consistent before and after Ishiba’s election as LDP leader. In its September 6-8 poll, three weeks before the LDP selected its new president, NHK (Japan’s national broadcaster) had the LDP polling at 31.3 percent support, with the CDP at 6.6 percent and 45.3 percent reporting “no party preference.” In NHK’s final survey before the general election, conducted from October 18-20, the LDP polled at 31.3 percent (again), the CDP at 9.2 percent, and “no party” at 34.8 percent.

Looking at additional surveys, Ishiba’s election seemed to win the LDP a modest bump in support, from the low 30s to the lower 40 percent range. But even that boost quickly evaporated by mid-October, around two weeks after Ishiba took office. Some political analysts have suggested that Japanese voters were frustrated by apparent shifts in Ishiba’s policy positions, which suggested that he did not, in fact, represent a real “hope and change” candidate for Japan’s dominant political party.

For all the public disapproval of the LDP, however, skepticism runs deep about the opposition’s governance abilities. The last time the LDP was out of power, the CDP’s precursor, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), cycled through three ineffective prime ministers – including current CDP chief Noda – in three years. The CDP swears that it gained valuable experience from its brief stint in government, and will be more successful this time around, but the public remains wary.

Notably, in most surveys held this year, Japanese voters reported a preference for “none of the above” when asked which party they supported. That extended to their choice of government as well. In a Kyodo News survey from the week before the election, just under 50 percent of respondents explicitly said they would like to see the ruling and opposition parties wind up with an even split in the Diet – rather than preferring one or the other to form government.

With no strong preference for either party on the national level, it’s unsurprisingly that nearly 50 percent of Japanese voters simply stayed home on election day. Just 53.85 percent of Japanese voters participated in the polls, the “third lowest [turnout] in the postwar period,” NHK reported.

As this issue went to print, negotiations continued to determine which party will actually rule Japan going forward. Ishiba suggested it would take some time: “We are not thinking of instantly forming a new coalition at this point. I think we need to start by discussing how to introduce each parties’ policies with a humble attitude. In the process, we will work to build a relationship of trust with other parties…”

Under Japan’s constitution, there is a window of 30 days to form a government after an election.

Regardless of which party ends up forming government, the LDP or the CDP, it will head a weak coalition, with constituent parties pursuing different – and at times opposing – agendas. Whoever takes the top office will likely have difficulty pushing through policies, and thus keeping the public on side.

Japan may well have reverted to the political norm of the 1990s and 2000s, when the country rotated prime ministers on a roughly annual basis (with the exception of Koizumi Junichiro’s five-year stint in power). Abe Shinzo’s record-setting second term, which stretched for over seven-and-a-half years, broke that cycle, but it’s looking like he too may have been an exception. Already, experts are predicting that Ishiba will be forced to step down, even if the LDP is able to form government.

If so, he may well enter Japan’s history books at the shortest-tenured prime minister.