Japan’s Election Results Explained

Japan’s Election Results Explained

On Sunday, Japan went to the polls to elect the upper house of its biccameal parliament, the House of Councilors. Usually, upper house elections aren’t all that important, but this one was seen as a makeorb breakak moment for embattled prime minister Shigerro Ishiba, who lost his majority in the lower house last year and has been slipping in the polls ever since. So, in this video, we’re going to look at what happened on Sunday, what this means for Ishiba and the ruling LDP, and what happens next. Could with a bit of context. Japan has a biccameal parliament with a lower house known as the house of representatives and an upper house known as the house of counselors. Sunday’s elections were for the upper house which is made up of 248 members with six-year terms. Upper house elections are held every 3 years with half or 124 of the seats up for grabs each time. Although this year there was also one extra seat that had been vacated in the past 3 years, taking the total number of available seats to 125. These elections used what’s called a mixed member electoral system with 75 of the 125 seats elected via electoral districts or constituencies as we call them in the UK and the remaining 50 filled through proportional representation. The Japanese system uses a combination of single and multi-member electoral districts and the remaining seats elected via proportional representation are not compensatory, i.e. they’re not allocated to make the overall result proportional to vote share. This makes Japan’s electoral system somewhat majoritarian, i.e. bigger parties tend to get a disproportionate amount of seats. And in practice, this benefits the ruling Liberal Democratic Party or LDP, who have dominated Japanese politics since basically World War II. Anyway, going into the election, the ruling coalition of the LDP and Kato had 75 seats that weren’t being contested, which meant they had to win 50 of the 125 up for grabs to maintain their majority. Now, usually upper house elections aren’t all that important. The upper house is essentially subordinate to the lower house which decides the cabinet and is where most legislation originates. While the upper house can veto legislation, this doesn’t happen all that often. And upper house vetos can be overridden with a 2/3 majority in the lower house or with a simple majority after 30 days for budget related bills. Nonetheless, this election attracted more media attention than usual because it was widely viewed as an important electoral test for Japan’s Prime Minister Shigtoro Isha, who’s had a tough time since taking office in October last year. Less than a month after Ishaba took over, the LDP and Kato lost their majority in the lower house at the 2024 election, giving way to the first minority government in Japan since 1994. Ishibar’s own approval ratings and those of the LDP have fallen steadily ever since with the latest polls putting the LDP which used to win between 40 and 50% of the vote on between 30 and 35%. And Ishiba’s cabinet hovering around a net approval rating of minus 255. There are lots of reasons for Ishabar’s relative unpopity, not least a scandal earlier this year where it was revealed that Ishabar had given out gift vouchers worth a h 100,000 yen to rookie MPs. very much reminiscent of the slush fund scandal that brought down his predecessor. However, quite a lot of it has to do with inflation, which has suddenly become a real problem in Japan. As we’ve detailed in previous videos, for most of the past 30 years, Japan has struggled with the opposite problem, i.e. deflation with stagnant or falling prices despite copious amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus. However, the bout of supply side inflation that swept across the world in 2022 and 2023 has apparently triggered a wage price spiral in Japan with wages growing at more than 5% yearonear and inflation rising back up to above 3% this year. Household finances have been further strained by Japan’s ongoing rice crisis. Thanks largely to a weak harvest, the cost of rice has nearly doubled in the past year, forcing the Japanese government to dig into its national rice stockpile and even triggering a dramatic and controversial increase in rice imports. Now, inflation is always pretty rough for incumbent governments. But it’s proved particularly tricky for Ishiba, who’s long advocated for fiscal consolidation, i.e. spending cuts and tax hikes, which is a particularly tough cell when household finances are already being squeezed by inflation. This has become apparent in the context of the consumption tax. Throughout the campaign, opposition parties have called for cuts to Japan’s consumption tax as a way to ease the burden on household finances. Ishibar has previously ruled this out on the grounds that it’s too expensive, but it’s a very popular policy supported by not only a large majority of voters, 68% according to a May poll, but also quite a lot of LDP lawmakers. Under pressure in June, Ishiba instead suggested a 20,000 yen cash handout for all citizens. But this was widely perceived as both insufficient and blatant electioneering. Anyway, perhaps the silver lining for Ishaba here is that while he might not be particularly popular, neither are the main opposition parties. The two biggest opposition parties, the Constitutional Democratic Party or CDP and the Democratic Party or DPP, have both slumped in the polls recently. And despite efforts to do so early on in the campaign, the various opposition parties have failed to negotiate an electoral alliance which would have allowed them to take more seats off the LDP in electoral district races. The shortcomings of the other opposition parties created the political space for Santo, a new farright party that surged in the polls over recent weeks. Anyway, as the results rolled in on Monday morning, it became clear that not only had the LDP done even worse than expected with the LDP Comato Alliance winning just 47 seats and thus losing their majority, but Sansto had way outperformed expectations, winning an astonishing 12.6% of the national vote and 14 seats. It’s hard to overstate quite how bad this result is for the LDP. They won just 21.7% of the national vote, their worst result ever. And Ishabal has now lost his majority in both houses. Conversely, it’s hard to overstate quite how good this result was for Sansto. They massively outperformed the polls and won the third highest vote share behind just the LDP and the DPP. Other right-wing parties also did well at the election. The Japanese Conservative Party, another hardright party, won 5% of the national vote. And while the DPP, who are generally considered center right, underperformed the most optimistic polls, they still won 12 more seats. So what happens next? Well, Ishabar has vowed to stay on despite pressure from even within his own party to step down. However, the success of right-wing parties suggests that many more conservative LDP voters are dissatisfied with Ishiba and would prefer a return to the more right-wing politics of someone like Shinszo Abbe.

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Sunday’s upper house election was yet another blow to embattled Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba who now presides over a minority government in both houses of the National Diet. So in this video, we’ll explain the election results and what might happen next.

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