LDP Cabinets Grow Less Popular
While support has been sinking for years, the Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party has suffered a defeating blow in Sunday's parliamentary elections in the upper house. Projections say that the party and its coalition partner have lost the majority in the chamber and will only occupy 121 of 248 seats going forward. The coalition also lost the majority in the lower house in October and now occupies only 220 out of the 265 seats there.
Despite holding on to power tightly in Japan for the majority of the past 70 years, approval ratings of the most recent administrations show that new LDP prime ministers started out with ever-lower approval ratings.
While Shinzo Abe’s approval was at a high of 54 percent when he returned to office in 2013, his successor Yoshihide Suga started out at a slightly lower 51.2 percent when he took office in 2020 upon Abe’s resignation for health reasons. Successor Fumio Kishida took over from Suga, who lost support for a reelection campaign due to poor crisis management in the coronavirus pandemic and a perceived lack of vision for the country. His initial approval stood at of 40.3 percent was a step up from the dismal approval Suga left office with, it nevertheless marks a deterioration in the popularity of new LDP leaders and left Kishida with less of a buffer for his own issues in office as most leaders reach the highest point of their approval rating upon entering office. Current prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, finally, started out with only 28 percent of approval, leaving minimal wiggle room.
The long reign of the LDP in Japan has led to election fatigue in Japan, with voter turnout hovering only around 50 percent in national elections. In these past upper house elections, a relatively high 58.5 percent of Japanese cast their vote. Despite the sinking approval of Japan’s ruling party, the main opposition party – the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan – only won less than 16 percent of seats in the upper house, while those parties that they could form a voting block with had even smaller followings. The Komeito party, normally voting with the LDP, won another 8.5 percent of seats.