Japan's Surprising Election

In a record-breaking year for democratic leadership changes around the world, Japan may turn out to be this year’s surprise package.

Two billion people are scheduled to vote in free elections in 50 countries this year, including the US and India.  An election in Japan does not have to be held until late 2025, but political crisis within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) means that Japan is almost certain to see an early general election, possibly before the end of this year.

The crisis has the potential to radically change Japan’s sclerotic politics and could have consequences for New Zealand and the broader region.

Japan’s politics are infamously stable.  The LDP has held power for all but 4 of the last 65 years.  But for the last three decades it has presided over an accumulation of serious problems as Japan’s population has shrunk, productivity has stagnated and its economy has entered long-term decline.  Once a rival with the US to be the world’s largest economy, Japan has now fallen to number four in the world, behind Germany.  In the last couple of years resurgent inflation and falling real wages have eaten away further at living standards.

Unsurprisingly, the voters are not happy.

When yet another financial scandal emerged inside the LDP late last year (a raft of politicians were revealed to have raised and spent political funds illegally) support for the LDP plunged.  In June its poll numbers reached the lowest point this century. 

Fumio Kishida meets US President Joe Biden at the 2024 NATO Summit/Image Wikimedia.

Astonishingly, up to 60% of voters declare they do not support any party at all. 

After unsuccessfully trying to manage the crisis within his own party while simultaneously distancing himself from it, Prime Minister Kishida was forced to announce his resignation last month.

His departure has blown open party politics and set up the most unpredictable - some would say exciting - LDP election in recent history.

Kishida’s successor as LDP leader will be chosen this Friday September 27.  Given the LDP’s majority in the Diet, the new leader will immediately become Prime Minister.  She or he is expected to call a general election soon afterwards.

The financial scandal has already caused chaos inside the party. 

All but one of the party factions have been forced to disband, curbing the usual behind-the-scenes opaque choreography by party bigwigs.

No fewer than nine candidates have put their hats in the ring – a record for the LDP.  They include two women and two men in their 40s. The choice could make history.  Japan has never had a woman leader and has not had a leader aged under 50 since WWII.

Remarkably, just three days out from the election there is no clear front-runner.  The three most prominent candidates offer an appealing range of choice:

·       Koizumi Shinjiro, young (43), charismatic son of previous reformist PM Junicho Koizumi, popular with the public but short on political experience;

·       Takaichi Sanae, (63) a hawkish conservative woman who held several ministerial pots under former PM Shinzo Abe.

·       Ishiba Shigeru (67), an experienced, socially liberal man, well-liked by the public, but less popular with his Diet colleagues.

The choice of leader is likely to be more about style and rebranding than policy change.  Policy debate to date has been tame.  The party is unlikely to move outside its familiar zone of cautious economics and conservative pro-US foreign policy.

Defence, however, has been surprisingly prominent.  Ishiba made waves last week by declaring that the region needed a NATO-style collective security arrangement.  He suggested the first step could be Japan joining ANZUS – which he called JANZUS – or the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA) of which New Zealand is a member alongside Australia, the UK, Singapore and Malaysia.  Other candidates were more cautious, but the exchange highlighted the anxiety in the party (and the electorate) about Russia, China and  regional security.

One area that might see more liberal change is social policy.  Polls on gender and LGBT issues reveal the LDP to be out of touch with popular views.  This showed up in debates when candidates discussed whether Japan should ditch its long-held policy of forcing couples to share the same family name (92% choose the man’s name).  While Takaichi was opposed, several others, including the other female candidate (Foreign Minister Kamikawa) were in favour.  A new leader could see policy change of this sort as one means of showing a modern face to the party without tinkering with more fundamental settings.

The LDP poll will be confined to Diet and party members, so public popularity will be only an indirect factor. But a key measure of the new leader will be the ability to regain public support in the subsequent general election.

Against this backdrop, the opposition should be making hay from the LDP’s troubles.  Instead it has plenty of its own.  Still remembered for an unpopular three years in power in 2009-2012, it is divided on tactics (should other opposition parties cooperate with the Communist Party?), lacks credibility and is struggling to present clear policy alternatives. 

Sensing a big opportunity, the largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, also moved to refresh its leadership this week.  To the disappointment of some, it chose to play for safety, replacing a younger leader with veteran male Noda Yoshihiko (67), who served as PM in 2011-12.

Unless the LDP is actually voted out of office (as it was in 1993 and again in 2009) commentators are pessimistic that the party will change itself in any fundamental way.  In a June poll 84% of voters doubted the LDP was capable of changing its culture of funding scandals. 

Yet despite the regular waves of revulsion against LDP corruption and poor governance, voters have shown themselves reluctant to abandon ‘the devil you know ‘, especially on basic issues of the economy and security. 

Historically, leaders committed to bold reforms have emerged only in the face of looming disaster at the polls. This was the case with Shinjiro’s father who promised to "destroy" the old LDP and implement painful economic reforms following similar scandals in 2001. 

He went on to become one of Japan’s most popular PMs.  Similarly, Shinzo Abe became PM for the second time in 2012, and instituted a set of long-term reforms that arguably are only now showing their value. 

While the current scandal has forced most of the factions to disband, it is likely that they will reassert themselves in some form and reassume their familiar role of coordinating the party from its backrooms, rewarding seniority, stability and loyalty over competence, dynamism and youth.  This will be a hard habit to break.  

In order to be promoted into Cabinet, Diet members need to have been elected at least five times from the Lower House or three times from the Upper House, meaning 15-20 years on the backbenches before getting their chance at high office. 

In short, the LDP is most unlikely to lose office in the general election.  Commentators lament that without the prospect of turfing out the ruling party from time to time, serious political reform is likely to remain out of reach.  The LDP and Japan’s enduring political malaise is likely to continue.

Yet whoever wins the leadership election will have the chance to leave their mark on Japan and its place in the world at a time when Japan appears to be on the verge of revitalization. 

For the first time in 30 years wages, prices, consumer demand, the stock market and real estate are all rising. 

Japan is taking a far more assertive approach to security and geopolitics.  There is a sense of Japan reclaiming its mojo after three lost decades.  The new PM will have the opportunity to show what a revitalized Japan might look like. 

• Asia Media Centre