Japan’s 2021 General Elections - A Sign of Progressive Resilience in the Pacific?

“Banzai, banzai, banzai!” exclaimed the 456 members of the powerful lower house of the Japanese National Diet, the House of Representatives, thanks to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s decision to dissolve the legislative body to set the stage for general elections on October 31, 2021. The decision to call for a snap election was in large part due to Kishida’s intent to strengthen his command over the National Diet’s policy agenda by invoking the mandate of the people through a hopefully positive result in the elections. If Kishida’s party, the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party, can maintain its majority, or better yet supermajority through its coalition with the New Komeito political party, Kishida will be given the conclusive green-light to continue a vast set of policy goals that he outlined before the dissolution of the House. In particular, Kishida has promised to pacify the unwavering neo-liberalist policies of his predecessors, mainly former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which is now termed “Abenomics.” Under Kishida’s policy agenda, Japan would cautiously continue its commitment to free-market capitalism while providing for some economic stimuli mainly aimed at closing socioeconomic inequalities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Kishida’s “new capitalism” platform would make space for slightly more governmental presence in Japan’s economy; a proposed committee, temporarily named the “Committee for a New Japanese Capitalism,” would facilitate cooperation between the state and Japan’s market to pursue a post-pandemic economy where economic divides in the population are not stretched even more than they already are. However, Kishida faces a grave threat from growing opposition in Japan’s 2nd most powerful political party, the center-left Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, even with their continued coalition with New Komeito. The resurgence of support for the Constitutional Democratic Party that threatens the Liberal Democratic Party’s control over the legislature and the premiership, which has been in place for nearly a decade now since Abe’s emergence, is indicative also of the resurgence of the left in Japan in the wake of the pandemic.

Shinzo Abe, the Representative from the 4th district of Yamaguchi, Japan’s conservative hotspot, achieved the premiership of Japan first in 2012. His firm grasp over Japanese politics would see the more conservative faction of the Liberal Democratic Party exercise its control over Japanese economics for nearly 8 years, during which the term “Abenomics” would become popularized. Abe focused on rolling back government social nets and involvement in the economy, instead promising the Japanese people that free-market capitalism would empower businesses to pay their employees more, thereby boosting the overall economic growth of the country - in essence, trickle-down economics. Abe’s promises were largely successful, seen best in his continued support and mandate from the people, an effect that lasts even until today. Following Abe, the longest serving Prime Minister in Japanese history, Yoshihide Suga, the Representative from the 2nd district of Kanagawa, came to power riding off the momentum of Abe but failed to match the popularity of his predecessor. This opposition led to his replacement just one year in with current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who still faces a much more threatening opposition than Abe had. However, the swift fall from grace following Abe’s rule cannot solely be put on Abe’s amiability, political capacity, or charisma as an individual leader. Instead, Abe’s neo-liberalist policies were successful in bolstering a Japanese economy that had not yet seen a crisis capable of highlighting the social inequalities these aforementioned neoliberal policies would foster. Following the pandemic, though, Suga confronted the long-term disadvantages of taking the state entirely out of the economic picture - rampant social inequalities amidst a globally crashing economy. As a result of Abe’s refraining from engaging in infrastructure or governmental behaviors that made the state interconnected with the Japanese economy, Japan had a relatively slower response to the pandemic under Suga’s government. In fact, the lasting negative impacts of Abenomics are so prevalent and widely spoken of in Japan that the current leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, or Abe’s successor, Kishida himself has promised to roll back on Abenomics. This newly found harboring of progressive economics, primarily seen through Kishida’s guarantee to involve the state in economic affairs as to prevent crises collapsing the economy via the proposed “Committee for a New Japanese Capitalism,” is emblematic of Japan’s overall movement towards left-leaning politics.

For example, despite the Liberal Democratic Party’s notable leftist reforms, support for the Constitutional Democratic Party is dangerously rising. Although most polls collectively agree that Kishida will be able to maintain a majority of the House of Representatives after the Oct. 31 elections; however, it is highly likely that the Liberal Democratic Party will lose its coalition supermajority and maintain if anything at all, a slight majority of the lower house even with the continued support of New Komeito. The ruling party is expected to lose dozens of legislative seats mostly to the Constitutional Democratic Party or such affiliated candidates, a trend that has already begun to materialize. Just on Oct. 25, 2021, by-elections for two seats in the House of Councillors, the upper house of the National Diet, previously controlled by the Liberal Democrats were held. The first seat, in the previously mentioned conservative stronghold of Yamaguchi, saw the Liberal Democrat Tsuneo Kitamura win resoundingly; however, in the second seat for the Shizuoka prefecture, independent candidate Shinnosuke Yamazaki with the backing of the Constitutional Democratic Party enjoyed a surprise victory over the Liberal Democrats. Just the 50% success rate of the by-elections constitutes a worry for Kishida and the Liberal Democratic Party, but several other details paint an even more concerning picture. For instance, Kishida himself had personally visited the Shizuoka district twice to campaign on behalf of the Liberal Democrat running there. Being the first national election to be decided since Kishida came to power, the fact that his visit to a prefecture saw the defeat of an incumbent poses great questions for the integrity of Kishida’s support even amongst previously firm localities for the Liberal Democratic Party. Additionally, both the Shizuoka and Yamaguchi elections featured tremendously low turnouts, objectively and comparatively. Shizuoka voter turnout stood at an unimpressive 45.57%, 4.89% less than the most recent upper house election in 2019 there. Similarly, Yamaguchi voter turnout was even more laughable at 36.54%, a full 10.78% less than the most recent 2019 upper house election there. Even Suga’s barely pieced together political identity following Abe was able to garner greater turnout that would further the Liberal Democratic Party’s strength in the legislature in Shizuoka and Yamaguchi than what Kishida had just accomplished.

These left- and right-wing dynamics are magnified even further when considering the relationship between Japan’s executive and the President of the United States, the relationship with whom in Japan is representative of the Japan-US relationship in general. For example, Abe along with his conservative backing in both the legislature and the populace was quick to embrace the presidency of Donald Trump, being the first in the international arena to meet with former President Trump just a week after the 2016 elections. Throughout Trump’s presidency, Abe sustained a commitment to strengthening the political and mutually right-leaning economic agendas of the United States and Japan. Abe reportedly would speak with Trump over the phone as much as twice a week along with Abe frequently playing golf with Trump. In fact, Abe hosted Trump in Japan twice on top of conducting numerous high-profile summits with the American President, all while developing a personal relationship with him. In 2020, though, Trump’s mandate expired, and that too in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic where Trump was criticized for poor handling and refusing to react accordingly to growing economic inequalities (uncoincidentally connected to Trump’s neo-liberal economics as in Abenomics). Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden’s promise to increase social security and economic nets to close economic inequalities similar to how a year later, Suga would step down to Kishida’s assurance of rolling back Abenomics.

Overall, the political indicators for the Liberal Democratic Party and on a larger scale right-wing governance in Japan are deteriorating. Not only has the Overton window in Japan shifted towards the left such that even right-wing incumbents are advocating for state entanglement in the economy, but the left-wing parties of Japan are pouncing on this opportunity to retake control of the Japanese legislature for the first time in nearly the past decade. The resurgence of progressiveness in Japan has impacted not only Japan’s economy and COVID-19 policy but also its relationship with the United States. US-Japan security and diplomacy is one among some of the strongest diplomatic relationships from both the American perspective as well as the Japanese perspective. As the situation in Japan evolves and the elections on the 31st begin to take place, the outcomes can have telling consequences for all actors and interested parties.

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