October 28, 2024
TOKYO – Japanese voters delivered a stinging rebuke to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a general election on Oct 27, with results reflecting a hung Parliament.
A special Diet session must be held within 30 days of the election to elect the prime minister, as bound by the Constitution. But whether this will again be Mr Ishiba, who had taken office only on Oct 1, is a big question mark.
What is clear, however, is that the 67-year-old is on very shaky ground after gravely misreading public anger over a slush fund scandal as he took a gamble in calling a snap election one year before Lower House lawmaker terms were to expire.
Final results are only due early on Oct 28, but preliminary results show that the LDP-Komeito coalition, which held 279 seats in the dissolved Parliament, will fall short of the 233 seats needed for a majority in the 465-seat Lower House.
According to a tally by public broadcaster NHK as at 1.30am (12.30am in Singapore), the LDP had secured 184 seats and Komeito, 22, for a total of 206 seats.
The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) won 143 seats, with another 87 held by smaller opposition groups and independents. Another 29 seats remained undeclared.Final results are only due early on Oct 28, but preliminary results show that the LDP-Komeito coalition, which held 279 seats in the dissolved Parliament, will fall short of the 233 seats needed for a majority in the 465-seat Lower House.
According to a tally by public broadcaster NHK as at 1.30am (12.30am in Singapore), the LDP had secured 184 seats and Komeito, 22, for a total of 206 seats.
The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) won 143 seats, with another 87 held by smaller opposition groups and independents. Another 29 seats remained undeclared.
Voter turnout was pegged at around 53.7 per cent, according to Kyodo News’ calculations.
The election results were extremely damning for the LDP, with a string of former Cabinet ministers ousted, including former economic revitalisation minister Akira Amari, 75, former education minister Hakubun Shimomura, 70, and former Olympic minister Tamayo Marukawa, 53.
Mr Ishiba, who retained his Tottori No. 1 district seat, said that it was obvious that the LDP had not gained the forgiveness and understanding of voters regarding the slush fund scandal. But he added that he was not thinking of resigning as PM.
“It’s a very tough situation, and we are being judged extremely harshly,” he said. “Across the country, the debate focused on the scandal rather than on key policy issues of diplomacy, national security and social security.”
The CDP grew in strength from the 98 seats it had previously held, with secretary-general Junya Ogawa saying that it would be a “major turning point in politics” if the LDP-Komeito coalition failed to keep its majority.
“We must prepare to take on greater responsibility than before,” he said.
The PM had set a simple majority of 233 seats for the LDP-Komeito coalition as the target going into the election. The public’s refusal to give him this mandate would increase pressure within the LDP for him to resign, given that he was chosen as party leader under fractious terms.
His main rival in the LDP leadership elections, former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, said on Oct 27 after retaining her Nara No. 2 district seat: “My feeling about wanting to run the nation someday is unchanged.”
He would also have to fight tooth and nail for political survival, with options including bringing independent lawmakers into the fold, or to engage in uncomfortable power-sharing arrangements with other conservative opposition parties like the ascendant Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) and Japan Innovation Party (better known as the Nippon Ishin no Kai).
If all these paths were shut off, he could become Japan’s shortest-lived post-war prime minister, breaking the record of 54 days currently held by Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, who led Japan from August to October 1945.
Nippon Ishin leader Nobuyuki Baba said on Oct 27 that he was “not thinking at all” about working with the LDP. DPFP leader Yuichiro Tamaki, meanwhile, said the party “might” cooperate with the LDP, but only on an issue-by-issue basis.
There is also a slim chance that a hotchpotch of fragmented opposition parties may coalesce around the leadership of former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda, 67, who now heads the CDP, to make up numbers for a parliamentary majority.
Mr Noda rode a wave of dissatisfaction over the LDP’s handling of a slush fund scandal, in which dozens of lawmakers were found to have kept millions of yen of fundraising income off the books. He told crowded rallies that the “best way for political reform was a change of government”.
A hung parliament would be reminiscent of Japan’s political landscape in 1993, when the LDP ceded power for the first time since its founding in 1955. But the brittle coalition of eight opposition parties collapsed after a year.
Political leaders made desperate pleas to win votes since campaigning began on Oct 15. A tally by the Jiji News Agency showed that they collectively travelled a distance of 84,000km – enough to lap the world twice – in hopes of pushing their candidates across the line.
Experts said that the political uncertainty would have ramifications on domestic policymaking.
“The future is chaotic, and the LDP is going to have a very difficult time managing parliamentary business or to even implement policies,” Dr Mikitaka Masuyama of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies told The Straits Times. “It would be another time of compromise, with politics of indecision.”
Sophia University political scientist Koichi Nakano told ST that the result should be chastening for a party that appears to have taken its dominance for granted.
“The LDP is like the Titanic – it’s a big ship that takes time to make a turn,” he said. “The LDP tried to make amends through half-baked measures, but everything was too little, too late.”