Doing her part: A woman in a traditional kimono votes during the general election at a polling station set up at a local school in Tokyo. — AFP
The ruling LDP party fell short of a majority in snap elections yesterday for the first time since 2009, national broadcaster NHK projected, in a blow to new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
It was unclear from the projections whether Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party would be able to secure a majority in parliament together with its long-term coalition partner, the Komeito party.
Ishiba, 67, took office on Oct 1 and called a snap election after being narrowly selected last month to lead the LDP.
But voters in the world’s fourth-largest economy have been rankled by rising prices and the fallout from a party slush fund scandal that helped sink previous premier Fumio Kishida.
It was unclear from the projections whether Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party would be able to secure a majority in parliament together with its long-term coalition partner, the Komeito party.
Ishiba has set the coalition a target majority of 233 seats in the lower house.
Missing it would seriously undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.
If confirmed by official results, the LDP losing its majority would be the worst result since 2009 for the party, which has governed almost uninterrupted for seven decades.In Japan’s previous general election in 2021, the LDP won a majority in its own right, with 259 seats in parliament’s powerful lower house. Komeito had 32.
Opinion polls before the election had suggested that the LDP would fall short of a majority and even that the ruling coalition could end up short as well.
Ishiba has pledged to revitalise depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population through family-friendly measures such as flexible working hours.
But he has rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames. He also named only two women as ministers in his Cabinet.
The self-confessed security policy “geek” has backed the creation of a regional military alliance along the lines of Nato, although he has cautioned it would “not happen overnight”.
The LDP is one of the democratic world’s most successful parties, a one-size-fits-all electoral machine in power for all but four of the last 69 years.
In 1993, the LDP was kicked out of power for the first time, after the dramatic bursting of Japan’s 1980s asset bubble and a corruption scandal.
It was last out of power between 2009 and 2012 when it was replaced for a chaotic three years by the centre-left CDP which had to deal with the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Voter turnout as of 2pm local time (0500 GMT) was 19.14%, down from 21.49% at the same time in the previous lower house election three years ago, according to the internal affairs ministry.
Roughly 20% of the country’s population who have the right to vote already cast their ballots by Saturday in the early voting system, the ministry said. — AFP
