Yesterday’s general election in Japan was unusually dramatic and, potentially at least, one of its most consequential. The Liberal Democratic Party, led by box-fresh Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (he has been in office for precisely 27 days), has lost its majority even with its customary sidekicks Komeito added on.
This leaves Japan’s eternal party of Government, which has been in power for all but four of the last 69 years, scrambling around for some coalition. Commentators in Tokyo suspect they will probably manage to cobble something together, but the party will be severely weakened. It is possible, after such a historic drubbing, that Ishiba will need to resign.
The LDP are projected to remain the largest party, but only just. The big winner on the night was the Constitutional Democrats, which increased its seat numbers from 98 to 148. There are a few other small parties who made gains and might have a part to play in a putative coalition, though at the moment no one is expressing any enthusiasm for working with Ishiba’s demoralised and tainted LDP.
Why did this happen and what lessons are there for the West? It would be very unfair to blame the result on Ishiba who is a respected figure in the country and the election result, which he has called simply “tough”. He did drop the ball on the issue of reinstating disgraced lawmakers. He said he wouldn’t although evidence emerged suggesting he might. But that was his only gaffe and he campaigned hard.
No, the hugely disappointing result for the LDP is being blamed on two factors: the faltering Japanese economy — inflation and a weakening yen — and a long series of scandals. Inflation is nightmarish in a country where prices and wages remain static for decades and companies have been known to issue grovelling apologies when even tiny price hikes have had to be announced. Japanese inflation has been running at a traumatising 2-3% in the last few years after 40 years of being close to zero, or even below.
As for the scandals, it was probably quantity rather than quality that did for Ishiba’s party — and here Keir Starmer’s Labour government might want to take note. The most recent and salient was a slush fund scandal related to fundraising parties. It lacked the juiciness or personal details of the recent revelations around Labour donor Lord Alli in the UK but left the same sour taste with the voters.
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SubscribeJustin Trudeau and Canada’s Liberal Party, take note.