What’s at Stake in Japan’s Election

 

 

 

WHAT IS THE EXPECTED ELECTION RESULT?

A significant percentage of voters often remain undecided until the last day, but Abe’s election gamble will likely pay off with a solid victory for his party thanks to weak opposition and an election system that rewards a slightly favored party with outsized gains. Two years ago, for example, the LDP won 79 percent of the single-district seats with only 43 percent of votes in all constituencies. Moreover, the snap election has disillusioned many voters who do not see the need, so voter turnout could be historically low, to the slight benefit of the LDP and New Komeito.

 

Each Japanese voter will cast two ballots on election day: one for a candidate in his/her local district (totaling 295 seats), and one for a political party that counts toward seats available in eleven regional blocs (180 seats), which are divvied up proportionally among the parties based on the number of votes won in each bloc.

 

The LDP held 295 seats in the lower house at dissolution, and, with New Komeito’s 31 seats, their coalition had a supermajority, allowing it to override upper house decisions. The LDP is unlikely to reach that two-thirds threshold (317 seats) on its own in the December vote, but if the balance within the coalition tilts further in the party’s favor—and New Komeito tries to stymie certain security or constitutional reform legislation—Abe might instead be tempted to partner with more conservative (like-minded) small parties.

 

Despite the LDP’s strong showing in recent polls, I anticipate that a quiet wave of disgruntled liberal voters will be motivated enough to deliver a muddled message of dissatisfaction to Abe, either through small gains for New Komeito, the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), or—less productively—the Communist Party. In the end, the political landscape will probably look similar to the way it did before the election, but Abe and the LDP (with their New Komeito partner) will have won an extra two years for policy implementation, through 2018. This could be important for Japan.

 

WHAT WILL THIS VOTE MEAN FOR JAPAN?

Japan’s economy is at a critical juncture. Despite some public angst over Abenomics’ mixed results to date, a rebuke of that policy without a ready alternative would be a big setback for the country.

 

A solid LDP/New Komeito victory would put Japan in a better position to revive the economy and improve its fiscal position. Abe’s cabinet choices will help clarify how serious he is in this regard.

 

A problem for Japan, however, is that LDP success would likely coincide with continued floundering and incoherence among the opposition, which is not healthy for the country’s democracy in the long term. In this sense, the election could have a notable impact on Japan’s political future. The DPJ will almost certainly look for new leadership after the election, and the party should consider dividing itself as part of a multiyear rehabilitation of the political opposition landscape, with the goal of creating centrist and liberal alternatives to the LDP’s conservative wing. The LDP has proven more adept than the DPJ at accommodating different political views within its ranks, but history suggests that this solidarity will break down over time, and both politicians and voters will benefit from viable options based on different policy views.

 

The size of the LDP victory and the degree to which the party still needs New Komeito to push legislation through will also help demonstrate whether Japan is actually shifting to the right, as some liberal and foreign critics claim. Nationalist candidates like retired Air Self-Defense Force General Toshio Tamogami in Tokyo’s twelfth district, for example, are attacking New Komeito for holding back the LDP’s security reforms. But if New Komeito emerges stronger at the expense of parties like Tamogami’s, Japanese voters’ aversion to right-wing arguments will be confirmed and questions about Japan’s supposed rightward drift could be settled for the time being.

 

WHAT MIGHT THIS ELECTION MEAN FOR THE UNITED STATES AND ITS ALLIANCE WITH JAPAN?

Washington generally supports Abe’s reform agenda. The United States has an economic stake in Japan’s success, as many of Tokyo’s proposed structural and regulatory reforms will likely benefit U.S. firms and exporters, along with Japan’s big multinational corporations. Getting some of Japan’s nuclear reactors back online will improve Japan’s trade balance and help reduce carbon emissions, which last year were the highest on record. U.S. policymakers will be pushing their Japanese counterparts to deliver on Abe’s growth strategy promises. They will also praise steps toward deregulation and begin to complain if the yen depreciates further.

 

Moreover, the U.S. policy of rebalancing to Asia relies heavily on strong and modernizing alliances in the region, and the relationship with Japan is among the most important. Geopolitically, Washington prefers a strong and stable Japan that can be an effective ally on challenging international issues and a caucus partner within multilateral institutions. The thorn in the U.S. side has been Abe’s poor relationship with neighboring leaders—in South Korea and China—exacerbated in part by the Abe cabinet’s revisionist tendencies on sensitive historical issues leftover from the early 1900s. These are not central campaign issues, but because the election could lengthen Abe’s tenure as prime minister, the result might convince Abe’s detractors that they are better off working with him than waiting him out.