It was a real slap in the face that Japanese voters inflicted on the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, conservative right) in the legislative elections of October 27. According to the latest projections released Monday morning, October 28, this historic party which has dominated Japanese political life for nearly 70 years has lost its absolute majority in parliament. Worse still, even with its ally Komeito (center right) they will not reach the majority of 233 seats out of the 465 in Parliament. A bitter failure for the new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, just elected on October 1, who had called this early election.
“Ishiba was supposed to use his popularity with public opinion at the beginning of the month to revive the Liberal Democratic Party whose reputation had been collapsing for months, analyzes political scientist Gearoid Reidy, but quite the opposite took place at the polls on Sunday October 27 with the most bitter political defeat of the PLD since its creation in 1955.” This sanction by the ballot box is largely attributed to a scandal of “slush funds” which has shaken the PLD for more than a year.
“The slush fund system, perfectly organized within the PLD for decades, was revealed to the general public last year,” explains Tomoaki Iwai, professor at Nihon University, who has studied party financing in Japan for forty-five years. “This scandal has deeply shaken the party and caused the explosion of the various internal factions, but the PLD has not launched the slightest reform to put an end to these abuses. » He has just paid a high price with this historic defeat.
Resignation or difficult coalition
“The Japanese are really angry at this political corruption which is not punished while they see their salaries stagnating and their taxes rising,” explains Izuru Makihara, professor of political science at the University of Tokyo. Already, Monday October 28, the head of elections for the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), Shinjiro Koizumi (son of the very popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi from 2001 to 2006) announced his resignation.
It remains to be seen today what Prime Minister Ishiba will do. Before the election, local media speculated that in this defeatist scenario he could resign and become the country’s shortest-serving prime minister since the end of World War II. But if he stays, he will have to lead a minority government or seek new coalition partners. “ Which will be very difficult” declared political consultant Rintaro Nishimura on the eve of the election.
The Constitutional Democratic Party (PDC), the main opposition party, appears to have made considerable progress by winning 148 seats compared to 96 previously. “Voters chose the party best able to promote political reforms”welcomed its leader Yoshihiko Noda, adding that “PLD-Komeito governance cannot continue”.
However, building a coalition to dethrone the PLD would be very delicate, the opposition appearing very fragmented and heterogeneous (1): from the communists to the PDC (center left), including the populist formation of the Japanese Innovation Party . They never managed to form a united front against the PLD.
(1) Since the 1950s, the Japanese opposition has only ruled the country between 2009 and 2012.