• The ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s main rival is the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan

• LDP may lose majority but will remain in power through coalition, says Japanese academic Saul Takahashi

• “The opposition parties are simply too disorganized to take on a serious challenge,” Takahashi told Anadolu

ISTANBUL

Japan will hold a snap general election on Sunday that represents a crucial test for new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and the scandal-plagued ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Over 105 million Japanese citizens are eligible to vote and elect lawmakers to the House of Representatives, the 465-seat lower house of parliament, known locally as the Diet.

There are over 1,300 candidates vying for a seat in Parliament, including a record 314 women.

A party or coalition needs 233 seats to form a government with a simple majority.

In the previous arrangement, the LDP had a majority of 276 seats in the House of Representatives, thanks to a coalition with Komeito, a smaller party supported by a large Buddhist group that had 32 lawmakers.

The LDP, which has ruled Japan for the most part since 1955, is likely to face a strong challenge this time from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ).

Polls suggest the CDPJ, which had 98 seats, could end up with as many as 140, putting the LDP in a position where a coalition with the Komeito is a necessity, not just an option.

The other major force in the last parliament was the Japan Innovation Party with 44 seats, followed by the Japanese Communist Party and its 10 lawmakers.

Corruption, China, the economy top issues

The election comes at a time when approval is plummeting for the LDP, which has been battered and divided by a scandal over paperless political funds.

In recent months, prosecutors have raided LDP offices and even charged some members. The party also had to deal with the problem of influential factions within its setup.

“In response to public pressure, the party dismantled most of its major factions, which were essentially parties within the party, that were vying for power,” Saul Takahashi, a professor at Osaka Jogakuin University, told Anadolu.

The corruption scandal “has been consuming the LDP for a while now,” he added.

“China’s rise is prominent in public discourse because it is constantly portrayed as a threat; economically, security-wise, even socially,” he said.

“But more than anything else, the biggest problem is the long-running economy.”

Once an economic powerhouse due to its manufacturing and exports, Japan has struggled with a sluggish economy with wages stagnant for more than 30 years.

It slipped to fourth place on the list of the world’s largest economies, behind Germany, the United States and China.

“Economic growth has stagnated since the real estate speculation bubble burst in the early 1990s,” Takahashi said.

“Successive governments have remained guilty of self-interest and of public complacency. They have proved utterly incapable of pushing for the kind of structural reforms that would deal with the situation.”

He warned that Japan’s national debt “has swelled to one of the largest in the world, making the situation unsustainable.”

“I fear that the political class, and the population in general, are too complacent to make the kind of fundamental changes that are necessary,” Saul said.

“Rather, the go-to option has been to blame all of the country’s problems on China.”

LDP is weak but opposition ‘too disorganized’

Takahashi believes the LDP is realistic about its electoral prospects and “has resigned itself to losing seats due to the corruption scandal.”

However, he said the opposition parties have failed to “capitalize on the weaknesses of the LDP in any serious way.”

“The opposition parties are simply too disorganized to take on a serious challenge,” he explained.

“It is not necessarily because the majority of the population agrees with the LDP’s positions … Through its many decades in power, the LDP has built a powerful machinery that stretches through the country at the grassroots level.”

That kind of mobilization capacity “is something the opposition simply does not have,” he added.

“The media has also helped portray the last time the opposition was in power, from 2009 to 2012, as a period of chaos,” he said, referring to the CDPJ’s last term of government.

Saul said most Japanese feel “there are no viable alternatives, and that has led to widespread apathy and low voter turnout.”

“The LDP may lose its sole majority, but with its coalition with the Buddhist Party, it will certainly remain in power,” he said.

“For better or worse, surprises are few and far between in Japanese politics.”

The US factor

For Japan and its politics, much also depends on the outcome of the US presidential election on November 5, according to Takahashi.

“Many parts of the right, mainly right-leaning media and commentators, have adopted what I would call a fairly open pro-Trump view,” he said.

“They think that Trump’s tough stance on China will benefit Japan, but that is stupid and naive. During his first presidency, Trump was very tough on Japan and demanded that Japan shoulder much more of the defense burden, both for Japan and in East Asia in general .”

Currently, under a bilateral defense agreement, more than 50,000 US troops are stationed in Japan, and Tokyo shares the cost of their upkeep.

“It’s all indicative of the very narrow-minded worldview of the Japanese political class. Essentially, they can only see the world through an American lens,” he said.

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