Conservatives win big in Japan — just not the Liberal Democratic Party

When voters went to the polls on Sunday, they were casting ballots in the least predictable Upper House election in decades.

The ruling coalition parties — the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — were foundering in the polls, but they were counting on their vote-getting machines as they had for decades. The main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), had a massive opportunity to seize additional seats. Meanwhile, smaller conservative parties like the newly established Sanseito were storming onto the scene. For political watchers, any outcome among the lot was possible.

What happened on Sunday was nothing short of a substantial win for conservative politics in Japan — just not for the LDP. For the LDP, Sunday's election marks the first time the once-proud party has lost a majority in both houses since its foundation in 1955.

Parts of the LDP’s base peeled off in favor of smaller conservative parties like the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) and Sanseito, leaving the LDP unable to secure even a simple majority in the Upper House. This has disrupted the political landscape in Japan significantly, which will start the LDP’s planning for a new prime minister while spurring on conservative camps both in the ruling coalition and the minor opposition parties.

So what exactly happened on Sunday?

Going into the race, the ruling coalition needed just 50 seats to maintain a majority. This seemed wholly achievable, considering it previously held 66 of the total seats that were up for grabs. In the end, however, its parties only won 47. Meanwhile, the big winners from the DPP and Sanseito scored 17 and 14 seats, respectively — a net increase of 26 from prior to the election. The CDP held steady at about the same seat tally it had going into the race, but the left-leaning Japanese Communist Party (JCP) lost ground in the Upper House.

To understand this outcome more clearly, there are two useful indicators: voter turnout and win percentages.

There was an interesting dichotomy in terms of voter turnout, where absentee ballots reached their highest numbers while overall voting was again at a historical low. Lower voter turnout usually proves advantageous to the ruling coalition and its fully developed vote-generating architecture, but this was not the case and suggests two things. First, conservatives and independent voters who might normally support the LDP gave their vote elsewhere. Second, the progressive parties failed to excite the populace enough to get them to the voting booths.

Meanwhile, win percentages — that is, the number of seats won compared to the number of candidates — help illustrate who had the most per capita success. The highest win percentage among the opposition parties went to the DPP, whose candidates won 41% of their races. While it was unsurprising for the JCP to have among the lowest win percentage (which it usually does), the outcomes for the LDP and Komeito were unusually low: less than 50% for the former and only 33.3% for the latter. Meanwhile, Sanseito outperformed expectations, finishing fifth in terms of win percentage only behind bigger, established parties.

What this shows is that Japanese voters wanted a conservative party to win the election — just not necessarily the LDP.

A narrative that is likely to reverberate in the media space is that this result signals the rise of conservative populism in Japan, and with it, xenophobic and regressive policies. But if that were the case, there would have been more voters coming out to the polls and more votes would have gone to the fringe — such as the NHK party (which failed to win a single seat despite fielding 48 candidates).

Instead, the election demonstrated the desire for LDP-like policies done competently. The CDP recognized this dynamic early on, which is why it brought the center-right former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda back to lead the party. Yet the absence of competent ideas and the continued disarray within the party’s ranks failed to inspire public confidence. Meanwhile, the biggest issue going into this race was economic pressure on households, and voters appeared to reject the LDP’s continued inability to tackle this fundamental problem.

There will be three notable developments from this election.

The first is that the LDP will be looking to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. This was his second national election failure after the botched snap election last October that resulted in the LDP’s minority government. There have already been opponents waiting in the wings to take over, and they will have ample justification to make their moves now.

The likeliest option for the party to turn to is former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi barely lost out to Ishiba in last year’s party leadership race, and, as a staunch conservative, she will use the Upper House election results as justification for her brand of political leadership.

The big question is when that might happen. The parliament is currently in recess until an extraordinary session is convened. This typically happens in October, so the LDP has an important decision to make: convene the session with Ishiba at the helm; conduct its own party presidential election before then; or push off the session entirely as it regroups ahead of the ordinary session in January.

The second development is that the conservative opposition parties will be exploring how to capitalize on their electoral success. They do not want to end up like Nippon Ishin no Kai, which has never been able to build upon momentum gained from election victories. They have three options: merge with other small conservative parties to increase their numbers; negotiate a place within the ruling coalition; or put all their effort into developing candidates for a snap election that could come before the end of the year, depending on the LDP’s decision-making.

The third is a changing electoral dynamic nationwide, especially after this election underscored the death of machine politics. Vote-getting machines (called soshikihyō in Japan) had already been increasingly unreliable for the LDP and Komeito, but this election confirmed that those machines are dying, literally and figuratively. The combination of an aging population, increase of absentee voting and generational changes have left the ruling coalition with fewer people on the ground to generate votes across the country.

This means that neither the LDP nor Komeito can simply fall back on these apparatuses and hope for a low voter turnout. If they do, they will continue to hemorrhage seats until they lose the government entirely. Instead, they will need to take lessons from some of the minor parties that surged in this past election through social media and other nontraditional forms of engagement with the public.

With the dust still settling after Sunday’s historic election, what is already clear is that Japan’s political equilibrium has shifted, and the parties that adapt fastest to the new rules of the game will shape the country’s future. For the LDP and its rivals alike, the era of predictable elections is over.