The low-down on Japan's elections

Shigeru Ishiba: the Liz Truss of Japan

Hola Global Jigsaw,

Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has emerged as the Liz Truss of Japan, losing a general election that he called eight days after becoming leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP) on September 27.

For most of us outside of Japan, this is not tectonic news. With the exception of the late Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Ministers have usually been short lived and forgettable. Ishiba, is in fact the third PM in the four years since Abe stepped down in 2020.

But within Japan, the outcome of these elections are the political equivalent of a Fukushima-like earthquake. Despite being a formal democracy, the archipelago has essentially been subject to single party rule for decades. The LDP has bestrode the country like a one-size-fits-all colossus for all but four of the last 69 years.

When I lived in Tokyo, between 2016-2020, the LDP was seen by the people I talked to as an inevitability on par with death and taxes. No one seemed to particularly love it, but there was simply no credible alternative. Votes for the LDP were, in a sense, default ones, cast by citizens on autopilot, acting out of habit rather than conviction. The result was a peculiarly tepid attitude to politics in general.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images

In China, where I’d spent the first decade of the millennium, it had been almost impossible to say “ni hao” without someone telling you their opinion about democracy (too chaotic), corruption (everywhere) and telecom policy (more competition needed). But in Japan, it was easier to get someone to wax eloquent about the myriad varieties of cherry trees than to comment on electoral preferences.

Just over a year after I moved to Tokyo, in September 2017, Shinzo Abe had declared snap elections, a year ahead of schedule. Coming from India, a country where anyone in power clung to it till the bitter end, the idea of precipitating a vote when there was no crisis was bizarre enough, but the really disconcerting phenomenon was what followed, ie: not much.

Having just spent four years in Indonesia with its India-style election jamborees featuring noisy political rallies, outspoken trade unionists, and a free and assertive press, Japan’s electioneering was so bland, it cried out for some seasoning. With one week to go for the elections lead stories in the newspaper were as follows: Shift towards renewable energy picking up steam; Japan’s ‘Way of the sword” baffling to foreigners; and Japan zoo mourns death of anime-loving celebrity penguin.

I often marveled at how the Chinese and Japanese political landscapes were at almost diametric odds. In China, an authoritarian government ruled over a politically engaged populace, while in Japan a democratic government presided over a politically passive citizenry. It was ironic.

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So, what has finally felled the Teflon-LDP? A combination of a long-stuttering economy and long-festering corruption. Behind the deadpan expressions of similarly suited men that dominate the DIET, Japan’s body politic is notoriously corrupt. Under-reported income and expenditure in political fund reports is a venerable practice, but one the impunity of which the voters appear to finally be fed up with.

The LDP has been in the eye of a slush fund since November of last year. According to various indictments, between 2018 and 2022, different factions within the organization under-reported income from fundraising parties by hundreds of millions of yen. But predictably, the party leadership has dragged its feet in investigating the scandal and has failed to hold the 45 implicated politicians to account with any rigour.

Although Ishiba withheld official LDP endorsement for some of the incriminated party members, he gave them a wink and a nod to run as independents. And then, late in the election campaign it emerged that the LDP had in fact paid 20 million yen ($131,000) out of taxpayer-funded subsidies, to the party branches of scandal-soiled members, even though they had purportedly been put out of the fold.

Combined with the economic troubles facing the archipelago - a result of flat wages, labour shortages and a rapidly aging population - this seems to have been a bridge too far to cross even for usually apathetic Japanese voters. And so, for the first time since 2009, the LDP could be out of power, if the Japanese opposition can get its act together.  

This is not looking all that likely however, as the opposition remains deeply divided. Ishiba has denied any intention to step down. The LDP now has 30 days to try to cobble together a ruling coalition. The outcome may not be certain, but one fact is: much wheeling and dealing is in the offing.

And although Japanese politics does not tend to arouse much interest internationally, this time, it would be good to pay some attention. A domestically preoccupied and weak Japan does not bode well for a region roiled by threats from North Korea and concerned by China’s growing hegemony.

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Many thanks and until next week,

Pallavi

PS: Happy Diwali/Halloween