Election of the Weekend I: Japan

On Sunday, Japan will hold an election for the House of Representatives, a 465-member body that comprises the lower house of the national Diet. The last election, just over 15 months ago, saw the typically dominant Liberal Democratic Party lose their majority, dropping to 191 seats. It was the LDP’s second-worst showing in their electoral history. A major factor in their historically weak performance was public frustration over corruption and scandal, particularly a “slush fund” scandal. Some of the LDP factions had been funneling some of the money from fundraising events into slush funds, rather than the restricted accounts that money was supposed to go into. That election left the LDP and their long-standing coalition partner, Komeito, well short of a governing majority. For a while, the bumbled along with “partial alliances” (which sound broadly similar to confidence and supply arrangements) with further-right parties Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and DPP (Democratic Party for the People).

Since 1996, when Japan abandoned an odd and seemingly corruption-inducing form of multi-member district elections, they’ve adopted a parallel system. 289 seats are elected via single member district, first past the post, while the other 176 are selected via proportional representation. Each voter votes twice, once for a person in the local district race and once for a party or coalition for PR seats. The PR seats are allocated over 11 PR block districts, with between 6 and 36 seats. There is no artificial floor for representation, but there are of course natural floors that vary by the size of the PR block. In the largest ones, a party might get a seat with 2-3% of the vote. The PR distributions are not compensatory; if your party overperforms on SMD seats you still get your full proportion on the PR side. Many SMD candidates are also on their party’s lists, so if they lose they may still be a member of the Diet. (If they win, the list just goes down one candidate further.)

In October, LDP’s leadership election produced a new party leader and prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, the first female prime minister in Japanese history. Takaichi formalized an alliance with Ishin. For this weekend’s election, Komeito (a centrist party affiliated with the new Buddhist religious movement Soka Gakkai) is breaking their 26 year alliance with the LDP over their failure to meaningfully address the corruption problems that led to the slush fund scandal that dragged down the LDP in 2024. They are joining the main opposition coalition, the Centrist Reform Alliance. Ishin will contest the election independently, competing with DPP for third place.

It appears that Takaichi’s decision to immediately call a snap election after becoming Prime Minister is driven by a desire to take advantage of her current high popularity, and by all accounts she will probably succeed. Poll-based seat projections show LDP comfortably capturing a majority on their own, so Ishin’s brief moment in government will very likely end. None of her main competitors–the Centrist coalition and two right-nationalist parties–are picking up much traction in polling, with the Centrists in the low to mid teens and the two right populist parties in high single digits. (If you’re wondering about parties of the left, things are grim indeed: the two most serious left wing parties, Reiwa Shinsengumi and the Japanese Communist party, will be lucky to hit 5% and double digit seats combined.)

Why is she so popular, and how has she apparently salvaged the LDP’s lagging image problem and taken attention away from the (largely unresolved) slush fund scandal? I’d be lying if I had any real insights to offer here, but here’s a discussion that gives a sense of it from the BBC:

Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, is betting on her personal popularity, hoping to succeed where her party failed just last year: delivering a clear public mandate for the long-ruling but deeply unpopular Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

It is a political gamble – one her predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, made, and lost badly. Voters will now decide whether it will pay off.

“The difference this time is that her approval across most media polls has been much, much higher than her predecessors,” says Rintaro Nishimura, an analyst and senior associate at The Asia Group’s Japan Practice.

“Conventional wisdom says: when approval is high, you call an election.”

Since taking office last October, Sanae Takaichi has dominated headlines, not through policy or legislation, but through political performance.

The “work, work, work” mantra in her acceptance speech reinforced the image of an energised, relentless leader.

In just over three months, she has cultivated a highly visible public profile. She’s taken high-profile visits from world leaders, including receiving Donald Trump only a week into her premiership.

When they appeared aboard the USS George Washington in Yokosuka, the prime minister raised her fists in the air as President Trump lavished her with praise.

And just two days before February’s vote, President Trump endorsed Takaichi saying she has “already proven to be a strong, powerful, and wise leader… one that truly loves her country”.

There was also her surprise appearance playing the song Golden from the film K-Pop Demon Hunters on the drums alongside South Korea’s president, and the selfie with Italy’s prime minister.

These were all viral moments projecting confidence and momentum, and distanced her from the traditionally stagnant and at times boring image of her predecessors.

“There is an atmosphere of positivity about her being the first female prime minister in Japanese history, about her being successful at diplomacy… with her having approval ratings in the 60s or sometimes as high as 70%,” says Jeffrey Hall, lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies.

Professor Hall added that this image has been propped up by “a large conservative group on the internet of users and social media influencers who provide a strong base for Takaichi, with posts showing her in a positive way going viral almost every day during the election”.

“So we have an atmosphere where users who log on to X [formerly Twitter]… the algorithm will be showing them very positive videos about Takaichi.”

Takaichi has also consolidated support among the LDP’s conservative base, reviving long-dormant goals such as constitutional revision and emphasising traditional values.

“She’s positioned herself as the leader who brings the LDP back to its [conservative] origins,” Nishimura says. “That has resonated internally among party elders as well as with the LDP base.”