By Max Sato
(MaceNews) – Japan’s ruling conservative coalition increased its majority in Upper House elections on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK and other news media reported based on their exit polls and ongoing vote-counting, an outcome that would allow Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to focus on his longer-term projects to narrow the income gap and raise the economy’s growth potential.
“We must make efforts to revive the economy,” Kishida told reporters on Sunday night, adding that voters showed keen interest in how to cope with rising prices. “We will continue implementing our policy measures and respond flexibly to changing situations.”
The ruling coalition, led by Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party, and its small allies are estimated to have won more than two-thirds of the Upper House as well, the first step toward the dream of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to rewrite the post-war constitution, which has to be decided by a national referendum. This four-party loose alliance already holds two-thirds of the Lower House.
Abe, 67, was shot dead during a speech to support an LDP candidate in the western city of Nara on Friday. A 41-year-old man with a homemade gun in hand was arrested at the scene immediately after firing two shots from behind Abe.
The suspect told police that he wanted to kill Abe, not for the political views of the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, but from a personal grudge based on his belief that Abe had a close link to a cult that allegedly led his family into bankruptcy after the suspect’s mother donated large amounts of money to the religious group, news reports said.
Of the 248 seats of the House of Councilors, 125 seats (including one vacancy) were up for grabs in Sunday’s election; the other half will be elected in three years. The LDP and its coalition partner Komeito had a combined 70 seats in the uncontested part of the chamber. In the contested seats, the coalition held 69 (LDP 55, Komeito 14).
The ruling bloc is projected to have won 76 seats (LDP 63, Komeito 13) of the 125 contested seats, up from 69 before the election, NHK reported.
This means the two parties now hold a combined 146 seats in the 248-seat House of Councilors, up from 139 seats before Sunday’s election, including the 70 seats that were not contested this time.
The ruling coalition and two smaller parties that support its plan to rewrite the constitution for a more active role of the military, are estimated to have won a combined 177 seats (93 contested and 84 uncontested), more than two-thirds in the chamber, which are 166.
Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) is projected to have won 12 seats, up from 6 previously. It increased its total upper house seats to 21 from 15 by calling for more drastic government reforms, but its leader Ichiro Matsui decided to step down on Sunday, saying, “Looking at the election results, we lacked strength. We have to accept that it was a defeat.”
The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan is estimated to have won 17 seats, down from 23 before the election, reducing its total in the Upper House to 39 from 45. The Democratic Party for the People, which was formed in 2020 by members of parliament who didn’t join the renewed Constitutional Democrats, won 5 seats vs. 7 previously, also seeing its total drop to 10 from 12.
“We must restore and reinforce the party structure,” CDPJ leader Kenta Izumi told reporters Sunday night.
Before the original Democratic Party of Japan was split into two in 2017, it was criticizing Abe’s pro-business approach and called for more inclusive growth, including its demand that workers should get “equal pay for equal work.” However, since the LDP also urged firms to improve wages and benefits for non-regular workers, it became difficult for the opposition camp to gain voter support.
In the latest election, the LDP under Kishida was also targeting both a “strong economy” and an “enriched society” through investing in human resources, which appealed to many voters’ demands that the government focus on economic issues.
The Constitutional Democrats called for a temporary cut in the sales tax rate to 5% from the existing 10% to give a break to many households while the economy is only slowly picking up from the pandemic-caused slump. They also proposed to “fight inflation” by lowering the gasoline tax and subsidizing purchase of other fuels, but it didn’t seem so different than what the LDP-led government has already been doing: providing subsidies to refineries to cap retail gasoline prices.
The main opposition party also lost full support of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation under its new chair Tomoko Yoshino, who made an unusual move to attend an LDP-sponsored conference in April, saying she wishes to see union demands better reflected in policymaking. The labor union is also opposed to the Constitutional Democrats’ idea to team up with the Japanese Communist Party.
The Communist Party, which has gained popularity among various age groups in recent years for its anti-war and pro-labor slogans, is, however, projected to have decreased its seats in the Upper House to 11 (4 contested seats and 7 uncontested) from 13 (6 contested).
The country’s economic growth potential remains close to zero despite nearly 10 years of cash injections under the government’s reflationary policy mix dubbed Abenomics, which relies heavily on aggressive monetary easing and increased fiscal spending while structural reforms have made little progress.
Kishida, 64, took office last October, calling for a shift from two decades of market-oriented policies “based on neo-liberalism” in the longer term toward narrowing the income gap in “a positive cycle of growth and (wealth) distribution.”
While the latest election outcome could raise expectations for more targeted economic policies, crucial reforms such as higher labor mobility and public pension fiscal tightening could be hard to achieve because they are unpopular with voters, a situation that has not changed for years.
In a recent policy update, Kishida’s targets including seeking fiscal consolidation have been watered down as Abe pressured some LDP lawmakers into keeping the tone of Abenomics’ large fiscal spending, newspapers have reported.
Abe led his party to a landslide win in Lower House elections in 2012 with a pledge to overcome deflation and to restore national pride with hardline diplomacy and conservative educational reform. His campaign had a simple slogan to “regain Japan.” He made a personal comeback, too, after serving as prime minister for only a year until September 2007 due to poor health.
Abe wanted Japan to have the freedom to engage in military conflicts overseas, if necessary, and fully support the U.S., with which it has a security treaty, but gave up his plan for drafting a motion in parliament, while in office from December 2012 to September 2020, due to a generally cautious stance among most of the LDP lawmakers.
Elections for the more powerful 465-seat Lower House, where the ruling coalition holds 293 seats, more than a majority, are not due until October 2025 unless the house is dissolved by the prime minister. The next upper house election is also not until July 2025, giving Kishida some time to work on longer-term projects, instead of just reacting to surging prices and heightened geopolitical tensions.
In 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan beat the LDP in Lower House elections by promising to boost Japan’s fiscal health through slashing “wasteful” government spending and reallocating tax money for projects that would support families with children and reduce unemployment.
But the DPJ government soon hit a policy wall, realizing that there was only so much it could do to trim spending in order to generate funds for necessary public programs. The DPJ also lost public support in the wake of political infighting. Each of the three DPJ prime ministers stepped down after about a year in office.
Until the LDP lost in 2009 lower house elections, it had ruled Japan for over five decades, except for a brief eight-month period through early April 1994.
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Contact this reporter: max@macenews.com
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