It’s a big surprise that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is revising the fiscal 2025 budget a second time in the Upper House, given that such a second revision is unprecedented in Japan’s history and that his government holds a comfortable majority in the Upper House.

The rare move shows the government is vulnerable not only to external pressure from the opposition in the Lower House, but also to lawmakers from within his own coalition in the Upper House.

Internal backlash against the government peaked when Junichi Ishii, the LDP’s Diet affairs chief in the Upper House, accepted a request from the opposition to summon Hiromi Todoroki, Chairwoman of the Japan Federation of Cancer Patients Groups, to deliver testimony at the Upper House Budget Committee.

“The government’s hike in (medical copayment) caps in August will be a blow to a lot of patients. We strongly fear that many patients will be forced to abandon treatment and lose their lives,” Todoroki said to the Upper House Budget Committee on March 5.

Ishii, who could have refused to let Todoroki make the televised plea, instead allowed it — making it much harder for Ishiba to justify the hike.

The LDP’s Upper House members made no bones about their dissatisfaction with Ishiba and their own election anxieties.

“If you can’t appease the public, it’ll backfire on this summer’s Upper House election. If the LDP-Komeito coalition loses 18 seats, we’ll lose the majority,” Masahisa Sato, an Upper House LDP lawmaker, told Ishiba at the Upper House Budget Committee on March 5.

Currently, the ruling coalition holds 67 of the 125 seats that will be up for grabs in this summer’s Upper House election, which takes place every three years to contest half of the total 248 seats.

If the ruling coalition — holding 142 seats in the entire Upper House — loses 18 seats, it will hold less than the 125 seats it needs to maintain a majority.

Junior coalition partner Komeito also confronted Ishiba, with its chairman of the Upper House Caucus Masaaki Taniai telling Ishiba, “The public isn’t fully satisfied. That’s the reality,” at the Budget Committee session on March 7. “This is a matter of life and death. We want you to listen to the people and make your decision.”

On March 7, Ishiba was forced to announce that he had decided to postpone the hike this year and finalize a new policy by autumn.

But how did the budget, including this provocative hike, pass the Lower House, only to be contested in the Upper House?

“Do you think there was sufficient communication between the Upper House and the ruling coalition?” Sato asked Ishiba at the Upper House Budget Committee on March 5 — two days before the hike was canceled.

It seems the lines of communication between the government and the party in the Upper House — namely Kazuhiko Aoki, an Upper House lawmaker serving as Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, and the LDP’s Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama — were not functioning.

Aoki had reportedly been telling Ishiba about the Upper House’s scrutiny of the hike, who, in turn, failed to deliver the message to Moriyama — the man in charge of policy adjustments.

“My understanding is that more effort is required,” replied Ishiba.

Nonetheless, Ishiba’s turnaround over high-cost medical expense benefits has sparked speculation that he only postponed the hike for the sake of the Upper House election, and that he will raise the cap once votes are in.

“I don’t think you would do such a thing, but can you clearly state that you won’t force (a hike after the election)?” Eri Tokunaga, a Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker, asked Ishiba at the Upper House Budget Committee on Monday.

“I won’t do anything like that,” Ishiba said. “We aren’t doing this for the election.”