It was a whirlwind week of negotiations for Japan’s top politicians. There were alliances endeavored and collapsed, political futures reshaped, bold moves made and missteps along the way.
In the end, the Liberal Democratic Party prevailed using a simple strategy — disrupt an opposition coalition — and it did not take much before ego and opportunism enabled that strategy to succeed.
While the period of negotiation was short, its impacts will be long felt. Japan now has a new coalition government and three opposition parties have fresh fissures in their already shaky foundations. The country’s ruling coalition has many issues to overcome before proving its long-term viability, but they have time before any national level elections to work through them.
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