TOKYO: Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party has held power for all but a handful of years since the 1950s largely due to strong support in rural areas of the archipelago. That formula for success now looks to be unraveling ahead of Sunday’s (Oct 27) national election.
Polls show that the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (pic), who took the job on Oct 1, may fail to win a majority for the first time since 2009 even though the LDP will likely get more votes than any other party. That’s mostly the result of fallout from a slush fund scandal that tainted the party’s reputation.
In past years, the LDP has weathered storms at the ballot box by leaning on an electoral system that gives an outsized voice to older voters from the countryside, where the party has deep roots.
A disorganised opposition and turbulence when the LDP was out of power from 2009 to 2012 also reinforced the perception that it was the only party capable of running one of the world’s biggest economies.
But this time appears different. Anger over lawmakers lining their own pockets is evident even in areas of the country that the LDP has long considered strongholds, like the prefecture of Yamaguchi on the southwestern tip of Japan’s main island. The last time the LDP dropped one of the four seats in the prefecture was in the 2009 election.
"I’ve always supported the LDP,” Hiroshi Ikawa, a 74-year-old retiree said as he sat outside a hardware store in Yamaguchi this month.
"But this time I can’t forgive them.”
The party’s struggles signal that Japan is set to end up with a weaker government. Most likely that’ll be a coalition with a reduced mandate led by the LDP and its partner Komeito, but they may need to recruit another small party. Ishiba has set a goal of retaining a majority with Komeito as a line in the sand for success, raising the possibility that his position could be in jeopardy if he fails to achieve that.
A weakened LDP-led government or even a patchwork opposition coalition would likely move more slowly on policy, seek more spending to keep voters happy and feel less comfortable about the central bank continuing to raise interest rates because of concerns about the economy, especially the impact on small businesses.
The LDP formed in 1955 from the merger of two conservative parties, and guided Japan from the ashes of World War II to become one of the world’s most formidable economies during a stretch of unbroken rule that ended in 1993.
Despite often being compared to western right-leaning parties such as the Conservatives in the UK, the LDP rarely puts ideology before a vote-winning idea. When opposition parties come up with a popular policy such as allowances for families with children, the LDP will often adopt it as its own, helping it to appeal to a wide range of voters.
This approach makes it hard for other parties to distinguish themselves in key policy areas. Like the LDP, the mainstream opposition parties also support market-driven economic policies and Japan’s alliance with the US. During the campaign for this month’s election the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party has focused on highlighting the LDP’s internal scandals rather than pushing policy differences such as its above-zero price target.
Still, analysts are expecting the election to leave Ishiba with a bloodied nose at least. The emergence of inflation in Japan after decades of falling prices and chronic labor shortages means traditional LDP supporters aren’t enjoying the benefits of their support for the party so much, said Harumi Taguchi, principal economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
"The factors that make the LDP attractive for an elderly conservative demographic with many pensioners are waning,” she said. "The headwinds the LDP is facing are so strong this time it seems inevitable the party will lose seats.”
Nowhere in Japan do the LDP’s roots go deeper than in Yamaguchi, where all four of the party’s lower house lawmakers won their seats with around 70% of the vote in the last election in 2021.
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe represented Yamaguchi in parliament until his assassination in 2022, as did his grandfather and great uncle, both also former premiers.
Locals refer to Yamaguchi as part of the "conservative kingdom” of mostly rural parts of Japan that have long supported the LDP. In a shock to party workers in Yamaguchi, polls here suggest they may lose the seat now held by Abe’s nephew.
"We are feeling an acute sense of crisis,” said Masanori Ueno, an LDP councilor in the district where the nephew, Nobuchiyo Kishi, is running.
To its supporters, the LDP represents stability and reliability, constant help for businesses and rock-solid belief in Japan’s alliance with the US. Yet its success is as much about demographic, cultural and economic factors that are on display in Yamaguchi.
The hollowing out of Japan’s rural areas as younger people look for jobs in the cities, combined with ultra-low birthrates over recent decades now means some electoral districts, mostly in rural locations like Yamaguchi, have less than half the number of voters as those in urban areas.
Effectively, this means voters in places like Yamaguchi have a bigger say in Japan’s democratic process.
Ongoing moves to combine rural districts and create new urban districts are intended to tackle the imbalance - 10 new seats in urban areas have been added for the upcoming election - but they fall well short of giving voters in cities and in the countryside equal representation.
For this month’s election, two districts have been combined into one in Yamaguchi, but the new, larger district still has fewer registered voters than 25 of the 30 districts in Tokyo, according to the most recent government data.
Voting patterns often show stronger support for the LDP among the older communities in rural Japan. Partly that can be explained by the LDP’s connections to far flung communities, even in isolated locations in the mountains or remote fishing ports.
The LDP is historically where local businesses such as farmers and construction companies turn to for support, positioning the party to count on votes from those groups at election time.Many senior LDP lawmakers represent rural locations. Connections to party heavyweights can be an advantage as rural areas look to Tokyo for tax revenues, grants and subsidies.
At ¥26.7 trillion ($176 billion), disbursements from Tokyo accounted for 22% of the total revenue of all local governments and prefectures in Japan in the year ended March 2023, according to the Internal Affairs Ministry. Over the years, the funding has helped Yamaguchi build long, wide roads, tunnels and bridges even while its population ages and dwindles.
During a speech at the launch of his campaign for the election, Abe’s nephew Kishi highlighted his efforts to secure funds for more infrastructure projects in the electoral district.
"I will work together with local cities and towns to make requests to the national government for roads. I am also working to make requests to the government for things like gas, water and electricity,” Kishi said.
All three of the LDP candidates to represent Yamaguchi in this month’s election come from political dynasties. Capitalizing on a well-regarded family name with an existing network of supporters is typically viewed as an easier option than rallying behind a new candidate with no party lineage.
Lawmakers who can tap into established connections are viewed as securing more influence in central government. Kishi’s father, Nobuo, a former defence minister, long held the seat his son is now contesting.
Ishiba, Japan’s current leader, is also the son of a former LDP politician. In recent speeches the prime minister has sought to remind voters of instability in government when the forerunner to the opposition CDP was in power from 2009 to 2012.
During that time, the government struggled to deal with the major earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan in 2011 and created tension with the US by seeking to move an American military base out of the southern island Okinawa.
But the LDP message of opposition unreliability may be becoming less effective more than a decade after the last change of government.
Reina Takaoka, a 30-year-old company employee from Iwakuni in Yamaguchi, in Kishi’s electoral district, said her parents had always voted for the LDP but she would vote for the CDP.
"I get the impression that they are on the side of the common people,” she said.
The LDP also may no longer be able to rely on the backing of those who might ordinarily be considered a lock for the party in Yamaguchi.
In the fishing port of Nagato, the home town of Shinzo Abe, the head of a local business association said the group was officially supporting the LDP in the election. He added that he cast a vote for the Communist Party in early voting.
For other discontented voters a protest vote is not enough.
"There’s no way I’ll vote for the LDP. If I did it would mean I accept the handling of the slush fund issue,” said Hiroyuki Yamai, a 54-year-old employee for a textile company in the city of Kudamatsu. "It’d be better for the LDP to break up.” - Bloomberg
