Japan began voting on Sunday in a general election that is seen as critical in providing Fumio Kishida, the country’s new leader, with the public mandate he needs to avoid a return to the previous era of unstable, rotating premierships.
The ruling Liberal Democratic party faces its biggest electoral challenge in almost a decade as it faces an ageing electorate that is weary of the Covid-19 pandemic and an economy in a near-permanent state of stagnation and falling prices.
Kishida dissolved the powerful lower house of Japan’s parliament within 10 days of being appointed prime minister this month. Having won the LDP leadership race by promising stability and appealing to the party’s powerful factions, his first task is to win public backing to focus on his economic and foreign policy initiatives.
Analysts and polls by Japanese media predict that the LDP will lose dozens of seats but narrowly maintain majority control of the 465 lower house seats. Still, the outcome is highly uncertain with the contest close even for LDP heavyweights such as the new secretary-general Akira Amari.
The LDP, along with its coalition partner Komeito, have not faced strong headwinds in polls since former prime minister Shinzo Abe led the party to a stunning victory in 2012, raising hopes of Japan’s economic revival and ending its revolving door of prime ministers.
In this election, however, Japan’s long-fragmented opposition camp is displaying a greater sense of unity.
The five opposition parties have fielded a single candidate in 213 out of 289 first-past-the-post constituencies. As a result, just 1,051 candidates — the lowest on record — are competing for 465 seats in the Diet’s lower house, including the proportional representation votes.
“We are facing extremely tight battles nationwide,” Kishida admitted in his final campaign speech in Tokyo on Saturday. “It is an election to choose Japan’s future.”
Business leaders and analysts say an election win is critical for Kishida to address urgent issues, such as the environment and defence. As soon as the election is over, he is expected to make his debut on the world stage at the COP26 climate summit in Scotland and explain how Japan will reach its carbon emissions targets by 2030 and 2050.
The new prime minister has also emphasised strengthening Japan’s economic security and defence measures given a more assertive China. Once the general election is over, he must then win an upper house election next year to solidify his footing.
Kishida has promised to inherit the aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus of former prime minister Shinzo Abe. But he has yet to spell out how he will break from his predecessors to create “a new form of capitalism” and finance his economic measures to achieve wage rises for all.
“His economic plan is not concrete because what matters now is the election,” said one chief executive of a large Japanese company. “He can’t create a new economic theory unless he has done a review of what’s good or bad with Abenomics but he can’t do that until the election is over.”