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Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is pictured during a media interview at the headquarters of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Tokyo on Oct. 27, 2024.
Japan’s ruling coalition loses majority
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and coalition partner Komeito lost their parliamentary majority on Sunday in an election dominated by economic and ethical issues.
“The LDP got thumped,” said David Boling, Eurasia Group's Japan director, noting that a recent political fundraising corruption scandal was its downfall. “It tried to sweep the political fundraising scandal under the rug, but the voters weren’t having it.”
The LDP now holds 191 seats in the 465-seat lower house, its worst performance since 2009. Komeito holds 24, while the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has 148, and two smaller parties, the Democratic Party for the People and Japan Innovation Party won 28 and 38 seats respectively – making them possible partners in the new government.
Foreign policy feud? Komeito has resisted the LDP’s push to abandon Japan’s post-World War II pacifism, opposing moves to double military spending, acquire longer-range weapons, and lift restrictions on military exports. In contrast, the JIP is led by Donald Trump-admirer Nobuyuki Baba and favors increased defense spending and revising Japan’s constitution to boost military engagement.
October 23, 2024, Kamagaya, Japan - Japanese Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Shigeru Ishiba reacts to his supporters after he delivered a campaign speech for his party candidate Hisashi Matsumoto for the general election at Kamagaya in Chiba prefecture, suburban Tokyo on Wednesday, October 23, 2024.
Will Japan’s LDP lose its grip on power?
As Japan heads to the polls this Sunday, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s decision to call an early election just weeks after taking office is turning out to be a high-stakes gamble. Polls predict that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party could lose seats, or even the majority, after ruling the country for all but four of the past 65 years.
“The opposition parties are hammering the LDP over the political fundraising scandal,” says Eurasia Group’s Japan Director David Boling, referring to the discovery of undisclosed political funds and kickbacks within the LDP, news that has rattled public trust at a time when inflation is biting and living costs are soaring.
Earlier polls showed that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito would maintain their majority, but a weekend poll indicating they could lose 50 of their 247 seats has left Ishiba on shaky ground.
If the LDP loses its majority, it could be forced to make concessions on monetary policy. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, LDP’s biggest opposition, proposes modifying the Bank of Japan’s inflation target from 2% to one “exceeding zero,” which would leave room for rate hikes even if inflation dips.
Beyond having to abandon its economic agenda, Boling warns that “if the LDP-Komeito coalition loses its majority, the prime minister’s deathwatch may begin for Ishiba.”
Japanese Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a front-runner in the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race.
Viewpoint: Kishida makes way for fresh face as his party's fortunes fade in Japan
After Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last month that he would not seek a new three-year term as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, the winner of the party’s leadership contest on Sept. 27 will replace Kishida as prime minister. Given his low approval ratings, Kishida had been under mounting pressure to step aside.
Ahead of the Sept. 12 start of the official campaign for the LDP’s leadership, we asked Eurasia Group expert David Boling to explain the significance of this contest.
Kishida won’t be running for a new term as LDP president. What happens next?
Nine candidates have announced that they’ll be running ahead of the 15-day campaign period. Because of this record number of candidates, a same-day runoff between the top two candidates is a near certainty soon after the first round of voting. LDP lawmakers and rank-and-file members will have the right to vote. But in the runoff, the votes of the lawmakers have substantially more weight.
Because the LDP controls the lower house, whoever is elected as the new party head will be approved by the parliament to become Japan’s next prime minister within days of the leadership contest. That person will form a cabinet soon after taking office and will probably call a lower house election in October or November.
Why did Kishida make this decision?
Kishida’s approval ratings have been abysmal since November. That’s when a political fundraising scandal exploded involving many LDP politicians. His average approval ratings fell well below 30% — in some polls below 20% — and have been stuck there since.
A June poll showed that only 10% of respondents wanted Kishida to continue as prime minister. Although Kishida has handled Japan’s foreign relations very well, he has also struggled to manage the economy. Inflation has not been as high in Japan as in other countries, but it has had a very negative political impact on Kishida. Even modest increases in prices cause great anxiety for the Japanese public after decades of deflation.
Do you expect this leadership change to have a big impact on policy?
Probably not. The LDP has ruled Japan for most of the post-war era and whoever is ultimately the new prime minister will hail from the party. The LDP is a center-right party and a staunch supporter of the US-Japan alliance. That will not change.
On economic policy, there could be some shift in fiscal or monetary policy, depending on who wins. But my guess is that it will not be dramatic. Japan is the land of incrementalism. Dramatic shifts in policy are not part of its DNA.
The current front-runners for the job of party leader — based on polling of LDP supporters — are former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, former Environmental Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, and current Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi.
How about on the next election?
A big reason why Kishida was ousted is that LDP politicians were becoming increasingly worried about the party’s prospects in the next lower house election, especially with Kishida as the face of the party.
The LDP itself now has low approval ratings, mainly owing to the political fundraising scandal. A sense of panic had started to take hold among party members that the LDP could lose a significant number of seats in the lower house election, which must occur by October 2025.
How the LDP does in that election will depend a lot on who party members choose as their next standard bearer. If they opt for a leader who represents a break from business-as-usual politics, they’ll probably do well. The opposition parties are weak and splintered, so that redounds to the LDP’s benefit, too.
But if the LDP elects a business-as-usual, old-school politician, they may suffer some losses.
Japan has a history of frequent prime minister changes – why is that?
Yes, there have been periods of rapid turnover. In particular, from 2006-2012, Japan changed prime ministers about once a year — a proverbial revolving door.
But then Shinzo Abe returned as prime minister in 2012 and was in power for a remarkably long time, until 2020. Comparatively speaking, Kishida has been a rather long-serving prime minister, at about three years. That makes him the eighth longest-serving prime minister in the post-war era.
The LDP’s long-standing parliamentary majority makes it the party most likely to produce a prime minister. Yet, the LDP’s own internal party rules – such as a vote to renew its leadership every three years – create a system that can replace prime ministers frequently.
Though forced to make these frequent leadership changes, the LDP has held onto power for most of the post-war period – why is that?
The Japanese public supports the LDP’s basic policy stances as a conservative, pro-business, pro-US alliance party. So, the LDP has been skillful at tracking the overall mood of the Japanese public.
When the LDP lost power from 2009-2012, the ruling party at the time — the Democratic Party — did a miserable job. Many Japanese have bad memories of that time.
They remain skeptical of the opposition parties’ ability to govern, as a result. Opposition parties in Japan are not seen as ready for prime time. So, although the Japanese public may grouse about the LDP, they trust it to manage the country more than they do the opposition parties.
Edited by Jonathan House, senior editor at Eurasia Group.
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a press conference in Tokyo, Japan.
Japan to go the way of the samurai: Why and at what cost?
After decades of pacifism, Japan recently announced that it will double its military budget over the next five years to become the world’s third-biggest defense spender behind the US and China.
How did Tokyo, whose commitment to pacifism is enshrined in the country’s post-war constitution, get here? And what are the implications – at home and abroad – of the world’s third-largest economy embarking on a major military buildup?
Japan’s move towards beefing up its military posture has been incremental. Tokyo's transition to increasing its fighting capacity has taken decades of debate by successive governments. Politically, the measures have been slow but steady, with many initiated during the long tenure of recently slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, including a more enhanced role of the National Security Council, which has translated into the loosening of arms controls, the constitutional re-definition of collective defense to fight alongside partners, and Tokyo’s founding membership of the Quad. More recently, Tokyo unveiled its first new national security strategy in a decade.
What is Prime Minister Fumio Kishida actually pushing for? In short, doubling the defense budget to 2% of GDP by 2027. For starters, $315 billion are earmarked for multi-dimensional defense over the next five years, including the acquisition of Tomahawk cruise missiles that could hit targets in mainland China. Critically, besides filling a major gap through a 20,000-strong cyber force, Japan would also build counter-strike capabilities to conduct retaliatory attacks on and across the Korean Peninsula, with the ability to penetrate Chinese defenses.
This isn’t just a military tech upgrade. It’s the end of the country’s pacifist foreign policy. “For years, Japan talked the talk — about increasing defense spending and acquiring counter-strike missile capabilities — without walking the walk,” says David Boling, director of Japan & Asia Trade at Eurasia Group. “Now it's walking the walk. Maybe even starting to run.”
Why is famously pacifist Japan beefing up at this rate? For more than half a century, Tokyo has refused to call its military a military – referring to it as a self-defense force – and has limited its uniformed engagements to multilateral peacekeeping missions aligned closely with the US.
“The reason for Japan’s new hawkishness can be explained in one word: China,” Boling says.
“China’s constant intrusions into Japan’s territorial waters, its rapid military buildup, and its firing five ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in August during the military exercises around Taiwan — all these combined to reach the tipping point for Japan,” adds Boling.
But China’s buildup isn’t just rapid and advanced. For a Japan haunted by memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it’s increasingly nuclear too. Considering that Japan has long supported Taiwanese democracy, the more Beijing threatens Taiwan, the more imperiled Japan feels. This is due to both the political and geographical proximity between Tokyo and Taipei.
The problem on the peninsula. Japan is also feeling increasingly threatened by Pyongyang. Experts think a fresh nuclear test looks inevitable – which would be the seventh since Pyongyang went nuclear in 2006 (the last one was carried out in 2017). North Korea has conducted 86 missile tests this year, an all-time high, with many projectiles launched into Japanese airspace.
Add Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as well as China’s saber-rattling with India in the Himalayas to the contemporary geopolitical mix, and the messaging for Tokyo is clear: Aggression isn’t a mere policy option. On the Eurasian landmass, when strong armies confront a weaker force, it’s an actual policy.
The politics of it all. Kishida is already facing pushback at home. Influential members of his Liberal Democratic Party have already renounced his solution for paying for the spending hike by increasing taxes. The pushback from within the ruling party may also be connected to Kishida’s low approval ratings, which are hovering in the 30s and have been hammered by a year of controversial decisions, a weak economy, and a spiraling yen.
Critically, more than 60% of Japanese favor the newly proposed counter-strike capability. In a new poll released after the proposed militarization, the majority of respondents favored Kishida’s plan to boost defense, with 55% endorsing the new national security plan.
Moreover, Eurasia Group’s Boling surmises that Kishida has some other factors in his corner, including a weak opposition, growing national support for sanctions against Russia, and years of experience in navigating national security as a former foreign minister. Kishida’s also wary of recent China-centric and defense-based polling: According to a recent survey, a third of the Japanese population thinks that there will be a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Indeed, according to Boling, the recent intra-party controversy over raising taxes for defense is a sign of what’s to come.
“It augurs increased friction between Kishida and other leading LDP members in 2023,” he says.