Ever since a recent slush-funds scandal engulfed the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito has sought to distance itself from its beleaguered coalition partner.
Over the course of the ongoing parliamentary session, Komeito, after presenting its own blueprint for political reform in January, has grown vocal against what it sees as the LDP's wishy-washy approach to reform.
”We don’t want to be seen as part of the same crowd,” Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi said on TikTok in December, creating a small buzz in the political center of Nagatacho.
For now, the LDP doesn’t seem too bothered by Komeito’s bold posture. Last week, following weeks of back-to-back negotiations over a common proposal for revising the law on political funding, the LDP decided to go its own way and submit a separate plan.
Komeito’s stance in the upcoming negotiations — especially in the Upper House where the LDP doesn’t have a majority on its own — will provide further insight into the current state of their partnership.
“Komeito is trying really hard to make a case for its own survival. They know that if they compromise with the LDP here, their votes will decrease,” said Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a political science professor at Toyo University. “Both parties are getting weaker. That’s why they're being so assertive.”
While falling support for the LDP might end up hurting Komeito in a national vote, the party appears too dependent on its bigger partner to take a fully confrontational stance.
Since the 2003 general election, the two parties have acted in lockstep on electoral cooperation. During general elections, Komeito has been endorsing the LDP's candidate in a vast majority of single-seat constituencies in exchange for votes under proportional representation and the LDP's backing in selected districts.
According to Sokka Gakkai's website, Soka Gakkai — Komeito’s main support base and one of the largest religious groups in Japan — has over 8 million publicly affiliated households in the country.
Soka Gakkai's electioneering power is no secret. During election campaigns, group members unroll a full-scale vote-getting machine with almost no equal in the country in support of Komeito's candidate.
While surveys typically show nearly 40% to 50% of respondents as having no preferred political party, Komeito supporters in general tend to be loyal.
However, the party's ability to mobilize its voters appeared to have waned recently.
In the 2022 Upper House election the party obtained roughly 6.18 million votes in proportional representation, a 5% slump from a previous vote three years earlier. The fall was even steeper when compared with the previous Lower House election in which the party got 7.1 million votes.
As Komeito's most ardent supporters grow older, their ability to mobilize during election time appears to have wilted considerably, a factor that seems to have prompted a change in the party’s strategy.
“We are discussing various ways to restore falling support for the party, including solidifying our current support base and reaching out to independent voters,” Komeito’s policy chief Yosuke Takagi said during a Nikkei Shimbun podcast in April.
At a time of political disenfranchisement and mounting dissatisfaction toward established party-politics, voters with no political leanings have increasingly been courted by parties across the entire political spectrum.
However, Komeito remains haunted by a certain antipathy among portions of the general public.
Together with the Japanese Communist Party the party often comes up as one of the public’s least favorite in popular opinion surveys.
As such, the chances of it being able to win over the hearts and minds of undecided voters are slim.
“With the current low turnout, elections are often decided by the parties’ ability to mobilize their grassroots base," Yakushiji said, pointing to the rising number of disenchanted voters. “The number of people campaigning for Komeito is actually decreasing.“
Levi McLaughlin, a professor of religious studies at North Carolina State University who has written extensively about Komeito, cites the party’s decadeslong experience in government and the emergence of a young cohort of lawmakers as some of its potential assets.
“Komeito’s been very pragmatic when it comes to affecting policy and there might be some kind of stability appeal (due to its long government experience)” said McLaughlin. “But that image’s going to be very difficult to overcome.”
Over the years, Komeito has faced harsh criticism for its ties to Soka Gakkai. In the late 1960s, allegations that Komeito applied political pressure on a publisher to stop it from releasing a book critical of Soka Gakkai prompted widespread condemnation.
Nonetheless, the party’s pacifist message and marked focus on social welfare resonated with migrants relocating to the country’s urban centers in the post-war period.
However, ahead of the next general election, Nippon Ishin no Kai’s growing momentum in Kansai — one of Komeito’s strongholds — has been causing more than a headache to the party leadership.
The region hosts six of the nine single-seat districts that the Komeito holds in the Lower House and is home to some of its potential future leaders.
Komeito and Nippon Ishin have a long history of cooperation in the region. Osaka Ishin, Nippon Ishin's local branch, had long agreed to refrain from fielding candidates in Komeito-held Lower House constituencies in exchange for cooperation in local assemblies and support for Nippon Ishin’s policies.
Nippon Ishin, confident that it can expand its popularity in Kansai and use it as a launchpad for a pivot to the national stage, last year announced it will cease cooperation with Komeito in the next election. Nippon Ishin has already presented its candidates for all six constituencies.
Even though Nippon Ishin struggles to stand out at the national level, its sway over Kansai can hardly be overstated.
Osaka Ishin no Kai currently retains a majority in both the municipal and prefectural assembly, while Nippon Ishin has all but wiped the LDP from the area.
If Komeito fails to retain the precious single-seat constituencies that it controls in the next general election, it would lose its appeal as a coalition partner in the eyes of the LDP. Should the coalition lose a majority in the next general vote, the potential entry of a newcomer into the coalition (for example, Nippon Ishin) would deal a further blow to Komeito.
Experts agree that, while ties between Komeito and the LDP appear shaky at the moment, neither party is likely to make a move anytime soon to pull the plug on what has been a long and fruitful partnership.
Yakushiji says that the absence of a figure who is able to act as a liaison between the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the LDP and Soka Gakkai will remain a defining feature of the relationship between the LDP and Komeito in the years to come.
“It’s going to be an ever-dry relationship, based on (political) calculations,” he said. “When mutual interests start fading, it will just become a matter of numbers.”
McLaughlin points to pragmatism and the political savvy of Komeito’s support base for the party and its supporters' satisfaction with the status quo.
“Around 2009 (when the coalition lost power to the opposition) people were calling for an end to the coalition, but not once did Komeito waver,” he said. “On the one hand, some of Komeito’s voters are bitter critics of the LDP, but on the other, they realize that being in power is better than not being in power.”
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