A Disenchanted Japan Punishes The LDP – Analysis

By Kuniaki Nemoto

Japan’s House of Representatives election on 27 October resulted in a hung parliament. Having ruled Japan since 2012, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost 68 seats, winning only 191. For the first time in 15 years, it failed to win the 233 seats required for a majority. The LDP’s long-term coalition partner, Komeito, also saw its seat count drop to 24, with the surprising defeat of its party leader. 

With a combined seat count of only 215, the LDP–Komeito coalition is short of the majority required to stay in power.

Most of Japan’s fractured opposition is gaining momentum. The largest winner is the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), with 148 seats — an increase of 52 seats. The centrist Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) quadrupled its seat count to 28. The Japan Innovation Party (Ishin), a right-wing regional party based in Osaka, secured 38 seats. Minor leftist parties retained their Diet presence, with Reiwa Shinsengumi and the Japanese Communist Party holding nine and eight seats, respectively.

Two scandals drove voters’ punishment of the LDP. The first is the LDP’s collusion and close relationship with the controversial Unification Church, which was revealed after the assassination of the former prime minister Shinzo Abe. According to police investigations of Abe’s assassin, the Unification Church, which was closely associated with Abe, financially ruined the assassin’s family. 

Some ministers tied to the Unification Church were sacked and the government initiated the church’s dissolution process. Yet the LDP failed to do anything beyond disclosing a list of 121 members with some ties to the church.

The second scandal related to misconduct surrounding the financing of the LDP’s internal factions. Many LDP members, especially members from Abe’s faction and the former LDP Secretary-General Nikai’s faction, did not report revenues from their factions’ fundraising parties in their financial reports. They then received these revenues as kickbacks as secret funds. The Abe faction, one of the largest factions inside the LDP, distributed 675 million yen to its members between 2018 and 2022. Prosecutors failed to indict most of the suspects though, since they could not find evidence and factions shifted the blame to their treasurers. 

Japanese citizens considered the long-ruling party’s reaction as lukewarm at best, as suggested by former prime minister Fumio Kishida’s plummeting approval rating. The LDP’s Party Ethics Committee decided to punish a mere 39 members, even though over 80 members were involved in the slush-fund scandal. The parliament held a Council on Political Ethics to question LDP members, but only 10 members appeared, since attendance is voluntary. Even those who attended offered no satisfactory answers. The Diet passed a revised Political Funds Control Act to increase transparency, despite the opposition’s criticism that it was insufficient.

As a very unpopular Kishida finally decided to give up his party’s leadership, the LDP chose to hold a new party leader election — likely in an attempt to call a snap election when its new leader’s popularity was high. Nine candidates scrambled for the election, though no candidate was willing to restart a thorough investigation into the slush fund scandal. The Unification Church issue did not get wide attention, either. 

The newly elected LDP leader, Shigeru Ishiba, decided not to give LDP endorsements to 12 scandal-tainted politicians in order to regain the public’s trust in the party. In addition, though the LDP endorsed other scandal-hit members on their single-member district contests, it decided to ban dual candidacies. 

These moves did not help Ishiba’s popularity, with his approval rating falling to below 30 per cent a week prior to election day. A final blow to the LDP came just days before the end of the campaign. Akahata, the daily newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party, scooped the fact that the LDP allocated 20 million yen to local party chapters headed by LDP members, including ones running without LDP endorsements. Opposition parties heavily criticised this as covertly supporting scandal-hit members. On 27 October — voting day — the disenchanted public’s reaction against the LDP was harsh. 

For Ishiba to stay in power, he must win the upcoming prime ministerial nomination in a soon-to-be-held special Diet session. Ishiba may not be able to secure a majority of votes in the first round of the nomination, given the hung parliament. Former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda, the newly elected leader of the main opposition CDP, quite ambitiously sought government turnover by attracting the other opposition parties. But as the DPFP and Ishin decided not to vote for Noda, the CDP leader does not seem to have sufficient headcounts, either. The prime ministerial nomination is then likely to move on to the second run-off round for the first time in 30 years. Since only a plurality of votes is required in the run-off, Ishiba seems to be better positioned for now.

No matter who becomes Japan’s leader, the situation will be difficult and uncertain — any coalition will likely be a minority government that faces the constant risk of a no-confidence motion. Turbulent times await. 

• About the author: Kuniaki Nemoto is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Economics, Musashi University. 
• Source: This article was published at East Asia Forum