The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) wins a qualified majority of more than two-thirds in the lower house in Sunday’s elections, effectively handing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi a historic mandate to accelerate her conservative agenda. From the previous 198 seats, the Liberal Democrats jumped to 315 out of 465 in the most influential chamber of Parliament, well exceeding the threshold of 310 needed to initiate constitutional changes and approve laws that would find opposition in the Senate, where the LDP does not have numerical prevalence.
On the other side of the spectrum, the centrist reformist Alliance – born from the merger between constitutional democrats and Komeito – suffered a real collapse, going from 167 to just 49 seats, pushing the co-leaders, the former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito to announce their resignation. The break between the LDP and the Buddhist-inspired force, Komeito, a historic ally for 26 years, turned out to be an electoral boomerang. The Ishin party itself, the junior partner of the coalition, emerges weakened despite the overall victory, with just two more seats from the previous 34, and its political weight will inevitably reduce as the LDP gains decision-making autonomy.
With persistent inflation and an increasingly tense geopolitical context, Takaichi promises a “responsible but aggressive” fiscal policy and a drastic strengthening of national defense, in line with the demands of his US ally. Among the emerging phenomena, the Sanseito populists, who multiplied their seats from 2 to 15 with anti-immigration rhetoric, while Team Mirai – a pro-digital movement – won 11 seats, making its debut in Parliament. The turnout, at 56.26%, increased by two points compared to the previous vote, despite the difficulties linked to extreme bad weather on the entire north-western side of the country, with snowfall also in the capital Tokyo, which complicated the shortest electoral campaign in Japanese history.