Five Things to Watch for in Japan’s Upcoming Elections

A year ago, Shinzo Abe stepped down as prime minister of Japan due to health concerns after seven and a half years of stable leadership, and his chief cabinet secretary (chief of staff) Yoshihide Suga took over the reins. Three questions have been lingering over Suga’s term as prime minister: First, how will Suga lead the country amid the Covid-19 pandemic? Second, can he consolidate his power and lead a long-term administration? And finally, when will he call for a snap election of the Lower House of the Diet (parliament), which adjourns the current four-year term on October 21, 2021? 

Suga is serving the remainder of his predecessor’s term as the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and will face another test this September when the LDP will decide whether to reelect him as its leader or choose a new face of the party. 

The timing and outcome of these two elections are intertwined and depend on a mix of variables that is still fluid. This commentary outlines five key indicators that will be a bellwether of the political events in the coming weeks.

1. Support from the Ruling Party

The first factor is how solidly Suga can secure the backing of his fellow LDP members in the party leadership race scheduled for September 29.   

In the days following Abe’s resignation in August last year, Suga stunned observers by quickly consolidating support from the major factions within the LDP even though he himself does not belong to one. Abe and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso both continue to back Suga. Other key figures also recently voiced their support for the prime minister in the upcoming race. 

In his first LDP presidential race a year ago, Suga faced two opponents: former foreign minister Fumio Kishida and former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba. Kishida announced his intention to run in the upcoming leadership race while Ishiba has been indicating he will sit out this time. Other names have also been floated as possible candidates, and given the downward trend of the Suga cabinet’s approval rating, which currently stands at 29 percent compared to 62 percent at the beginning of his term, some may see an opportunity to jump into the race. While it seems that Suga is garnering enough support within his party to extend his term, observers will closely monitor how key LDP players express their support for Suga in the coming days to detect any shifts in momentum.  

2. Response to Covid-19

Like many other governments around the world, the Suga administration has designated the response to the Covid-19 pandemic as its top priority. While Japan has fared better than many other countries in terms of total confirmed cases and fatalities related to Covid and avoided strict lockdowns, a recent spike in cases is a great concern for the public. 

As the graph below indicates, there has been a correlation between the cabinet approval rating and the number of Covid cases. 

If the infection numbers remain steady or increase, it could suggest that the ruling coalition will face an uphill battle in the upcoming general election. The Japanese government recently expanded a Covid state of emergency (discouraging activity outside but stopping short of strict lockdown measures) to cover 21 prefectures, which will remain in effect until September 12. Whether the measures can be lifted by then could affect the timing of the elections.   

The vaccination rate is another key factor. Currently, 43.0 percent of the entire population is fully vaccinated while 86.7 percent of those 65 years and older are fully vaccinated. Japan began the inoculation program for its healthcare workers in mid-February and moved onto the 65 and over population in April. The slower pace of the vaccination rollout is attributed to multiple factors, including a regulatory requirement for domestic clinical trials with Japanese citizens and a delay in vaccine importation.

Despite some hiccups along the way, the Suga administration has set a goal of fully vaccinating 80 percent of adults who wish to be immunized by early October. 

3. The Impact of the Olympics

The third factor is how the Japanese public will perceive the government’s handling of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, as well as how it views the games overall. As Covid cases surged and stricter measures were put in place in order to host a “safe and secure Olympics,” the Japanese public became increasingly opposed to holding the games. According to an Ipsos Global Advisor poll in mid-July, 78 percent of the Japanese public thought the Tokyo Olympics “should not go ahead.” Shortly after the government announced that spectators would be banned at the games to curb infections, a poll conducted in July by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) found that 39 percent agreed with the decision, while 30 percent said the games should be canceled and 22 percent said some spectators should be allowed.  

Public sentiment seems to have shifted positively now that the Olympic games have concluded. The latest NHK poll finds 62 percent saying it was “good” or “somewhat good” that Tokyo hosted the games, while 32 percent responded negatively. However, that may not necessarily translate into an endorsement of the government’s performance. In the same NHK poll, only 31 percent thought that the Olympics were “safe and secure,” and 57 percent said they were not. 

If public sentiment improves further after the Paralympics conclude in early September, that would be a welcome development for the Suga administration. Conversely, if Covid spreads and the public becomes convinced that the burden of hosting the Olympics during the pandemic was greater than the benefit, the voters may express their dissatisfaction with the government at the polling stations in the fall, resulting in an outcome ranging from the ruling coalition losing many seats yet retaining a majority to it being swept out of government. 

4. Election Campaign Strategy

Another factor that will affect the outcome in the next general election is whether the ruling coalition can formulate an effective campaign strategy given the results of recent local elections. 

In the Tokyo prefectural election on July 4, the LDP did not reach its initial goal of winning 50 or more seats in the 127-seat legislature. Although the LDP won 33 seats (a gain of 8), replacing a regional party in Tokyo as the leading party, the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito (the Clean Government Party), which maintained 23 seats, fell short of picking up the 64 seats needed for a majority. The results seem to reflect Tokyoites’ frustration with the handling of the pandemic and the Olympics. According to exit polls conducted by Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun, 27 percent of voters listed the pandemic as an issue they weighed the most, followed by the Olympics at 12 percent. 

A mayoral race in Yokohama on August 22 also received a lot of media attention. Yokohama, located just south of Tokyo in Kanagawa Prefecture, is Japan’s second largest city but also close to Prime Minister Suga’s home district. Suga backed his longtime ally Hachiro Okonogi, former chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, who ran against seven other contestants including the incumbent mayor, who got support from the LDP in the 2017 election. They both lost to Takeharu Yamanaka, a candidate backed by the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP). Okonogi’s loss, due in part to a failure to unify LDP support behind his candidacy, was generally interpreted as a warning sign for Suga given his connection to the region and the broader context of LDP losses in Tokyo and other local elections earlier this year.   

Nationally, the LDP has the support of 33.4 percent of voters, followed by the CDP at 6.4 percent, with 42.8 percent unaffiliated. The LDP appears to be leading with a big margin, but the results of these recent local elections underline the challenges the LDP could face in the upcoming Lower House election: how to overcome voters’ frustration with the government’s handling of the pandemic, develop a strategy focused on economic growth and other issues, and organize resources on the ground to generate support for candidates endorsed by the party. How well the ruling coalition performs in the Lower House election will partly depend on how much they can adopt what they learned from these “wake-up call” elections to formulate more effective messaging and campaign strategies. 

5. Setting Expectations

Lastly, some insights can be gleaned from how the ruling coalition will define a “win” in the Lower House election. The benchmarks include a two-thirds majority (310 seats), an absolute majority (261 seats), and a simple majority (233 seats).

In the Japanese parliamentary system, the more powerful Lower House can override the ruling of the Upper House with a two-thirds vote. The two-thirds majority is also an important benchmark because that is the required majority in both chambers to set a motion to amend the Constitution, a priority for many LDP members.

An absolute majority, or zettai antei tasū, refers to the most stable arrangement for a ruling party in committee procedure, in which it enjoys a majority in each of the 17 standing committees and the chairperson posts, allowing it to “steamroll” legislation through committees in case of a tie vote. 

Since 2012, the LDP has retained a two-thirds majority with its coalition partner Komeito. However, in the current political climate it is widely assumed that the ruling coalition will lose some seats in the upcoming election, and recent comments by key figures indicate that they could be preparing for such an eventuality. 

For instance, in June, former prime minister Abe stated that it should be considered “a clear victory if the ruling parties win a [simple] majority.”  His comments were followed by Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi, who said that “the important goal is for the ruling coalition to stay in power, with at least keeping a majority.” 

How the LDP and Komeito members define a win is important not only from a legislative perspective but also in terms of managing expectations and signaling how much they are willing to rally behind Suga and give him much-needed political capital. Should Suga prevail in the LDP race and clear the bar set by the LDP, he should be positioned to implement economic reform and other initiatives he has championed once the threat of the pandemic has abated.

Going Forward

With the announcement by the LDP of its plans for the leadership race on September 29, there’s now an answer to one of the “unknowns” on the calendar for political events this fall. As opposed to an uncontested leadership race, the party decided on a full-fledged party convention in which not only LDP legislators in the Diet but also regional party members cast their ballots. This would give Suga, or a new leader, legitimacy as the party hopes to gain momentum going into the general election. 

However, the LDP leadership race is not set in stone and can be postponed either due to rising Covid cases or Suga’s decision to call for a snap election before the LDP race. He may even reshuffle key party executive posts with fresh faces to generate momentum. 

As the political landscape has become increasingly fluid, no scenario can be ruled out at this time. The five interwoven factors outlined above will help shape answers to the questions of how contested the LDP leadership race will be, as well as what will happen with the timing and outcome of the Lower House election. 

Yuko Nakano is an associate fellow with the Office of the Japan Chair and an associate director of the U.S.-Japan Strategic Leadership Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. 

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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