Explainer | Explained: what’s at stake in Japan’s 2019 upper house election?
- The ruling LDP-Komeito coalition maintains its lead over the lacklustre opposition parties, and is poised to retain its two-thirds supermajority
- It is likely to be Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s final campaign, as he has promised to not contest another term as LDP leader after 2021
Elections for half the upper house are fixed for every three years, so representatives serve staggered six-year terms. The number of seats has been raised from 242 to 248, to correct a voter-value disparity. For this election campaign, which officially started on July 4, there are 74 seats determined by first-past-the-post voting in prefectural constituencies, and the 50 other seats are allocated from national proportional representation votes on party lists.
If the governing coalition of the LDP and its junior partner the Komeito Party falls below its current upper house majority of 147, that will end Abe’s hopes of amending Article 9 of the constitution, to embed formal recognition of the Japanese Self Defence Forces (SDF).
Will Abe win, and what are the major issues of the campaign?
If the LDP-Komeito coalition maintains its strong lead over the lacklustre opposition parties, it could retain the supermajority it has enjoyed since the 2016 election, followed by the 2017 lower house election, where they also won a supermajority of 312 seats out of 465.
The LDP-Komeito coalition needs to win 63 of the seats being contested to have a simple majority. If they win 83 seats, they will keep the two-thirds supermajority they presently enjoy with the support of smaller nationalist parties, such as the Japan Innovation Party and similarly inclined independents.
A two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, is needed to approve any referendum to change the constitution, which needs to pass by a simple majority of the electorate.
Recent opinion polling indicates the LDP-Komeito coalition enjoys about 40 per cent support. The largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), has only 7 per cent, the Japanese Communist Party about 3 per cent, and a further 10 per cent is distributed between various small parties and independent candidates.
Reflecting the long-term trend of substantial political apathy among the Japanese electorate, at least 40 per cent are undecided or have no preference, and voter turnout could well fall below 55 per cent, the level for the July 2016 election.
The opposition parties have nevertheless campaigned against any change to the constitution and the unpopular consumption tax increase scheduled for October.
Despite modest economic growth – propped up by record debt-funded public spending – and low unemployment, real wage growth remains tepid, and consumer confidence is the weakest since the consumption tax was last increased in 2014. The opposition has also pressured the Abe government over widespread public concern about the viability of the pension system.
Which external factors could shape the outcome?
Since returning to office in 2012, Abe has raised his profile as one of the world’s most experienced diplomatic leaders, culminating in his role as host of last month’s G20 summit in Osaka. Currently, though, Japan’s foreign relations are disjointed – strained, in some cases.
Bilateral trade negotiations also cast a long shadow over the US- Japan alliance. They are expected to end in September, when Abe meets Trump in New York.
Japanese utility companies are preparing to restart coal-fired power plants for the summer, undermining Japan’s commitments in the Paris Agreement. The CDP also opposes the restart of Japan’s nuclear power plants.
Who is driving the agenda?
This will be Abe’s last campaign, unless he calls an early snap poll before the next election for the lower house, due by October 2021, when he would complete his record fourth consecutive term as LDP president.
The LDP lost the 2007 upper house election, which led to Abe’s resignation as prime minister. Another poor result could push him to step down early.
CDP leader Yukio Edano could face pressure to resign if the party’s vote share does not increase. The CDP is coordinating with other minor opposition parties to avoid competing with each other in single-member constituencies, but Edano has rejected an approach to merge with the smaller Democratic Party for the People – which was formed after the CDP’s predecessor, the Democratic Party, split before the 2017 general election.
Out of some 370 candidates, there are a record 104 women running, but Japan still ranks poorly for female participation among the world’s democracies.
Among the fringe parties competing for attention this election, the most eccentric may be the Party of Protecting People from NHK. Its sole policy is to abolish the national public broadcaster NHK to end its loosely enforced TV licensing fees. ■
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Craig Mark is a professor in the Faculty of International Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University, Tokyo