The small right-wing populist party Sanseito, which campaigned under the slogan of “Japanese First,” won big in Sunday’s Upper House election, taking 14 seats — the third-most among opposition forces in the poll, after the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP).

The stunning results made the upstart party the fourth-largest opposition force in the Upper House, behind the CDP, DPP and Nippon Ishin no Kai.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito coalition was dealt a drubbing in the poll, losing its majority — meaning it will need the support of at least one opposition party to pass any piece of legislation.

But while Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya said his party may cooperate with the ruling coalition on a policy basis, he ruled out joining any government, at least until the party wins more seats in the next Lower House election.

“If Sanseito wins 50 or 60 seats in the next Lower House election, I think it may be possible to form a coalition government with small parties, like European (governments), in the future. (Sanseito) will aim to be a part of that,” Kamiya told a news conference Sunday night.

Although Sanseito was unable to achieve its goal of winning 20 seats — the minimum required to submit budget bills in the Upper House — it now has enough to submit nonspending bills, which require just 10.

The party won seven seats in electoral districts — including in highly contested battlegrounds in Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa, Ibaraki, Aichi and Fukuoka prefectures, as well as in Osaka, Nippon Ishin’s home turf. It also won seven proportional representation slots.

In Tokyo, where seven seats were contested, Sanseito was the second-most popular party after the LDP, with candidate Saya, who goes by one name, winning 668,568 votes and LDP candidate Daichi Suzuki garnering 772,272.

About 1,400 people attended a Sanseito public rally on Saturday morning near Omiya Station in Saitama, party officials said.
About 1,400 people attended a Sanseito public rally on Saturday morning near Omiya Station in Saitama, party officials said. | Himari Semans

As ballots were being tallied Sunday night, Kamiya and other successful candidates spoke to the media, devoting much of their airtime to defending the party’s controversial “Japanese First” rhetoric.

Repeatedly denying that the slogan is xenophobic, Kamiya claimed it “is about standing up against globalism and protecting the lives of Japanese citizens.”

“The notion that people who want to discriminate and kick foreigners out (of Japan) are flocking to Sanseito is, I think, a little wrong. We aren’t that kind of party,” said Kamiya, who did not run in Sunday’s election as his Upper House term ends in 2028.

Nevertheless, winning candidates said they owed their strong showing to the party’s “Japanese First” rhetoric, which they said had resonated with voters.

Mizuho Umemura, who won a proportional representation seat, said that the approach matched the views of voters who are not content with the government’s immigration policy amid concerns over rising foreign landownership and overtourism.

Sanseito has vowed to limit the number of foreign nationals in Japan — including specified skilled workers and tourists — and cap the proportion of foreign residents at 5% of Japanese citizens in each municipality. It has also pledged to make it more difficult for foreign nationals to be naturalized as citizens or obtain permanent residence, while banning naturalized citizens from running for public office.

Days before the Upper House election, Sanseito’s support rating hit a record high of 4.7% — up 2.2 percentage points from the previous month — making it the third most popular party after the LDP and CDP, according to a Jiji Press poll released Thursday.

Highlighting the breakneck speed at which the party has grown, Sanseito was founded in 2020 by Kamiya, who was elected to the Upper House two years later, with the party securing three seats in October’s Lower House election and three seats in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly poll last month.

Experts say that Sanseito’s success is in part due to widespread dissatisfaction with the LDP-Komeito government’s inability to ease inflation concerns.

“(Voters) decided to give up on the LDP and Komeito,” political commentator Atsuo Ito said. “Once they gave up, what happened psychologically is that they began to hope for something new. Sanseito is, for voters, a very new party.”

The rise in support for Sanseito was evident by the growing crowds at its public rallies as Election Day neared. On Saturday morning, about 1,400 people attended a Sanseito rally in the city of Saitama, while around 20,000 turned out for its final rally that evening in Tokyo, according to party officials. It was not possible to independently confirm those figures.

While most rally attendees supported Sanseito, they were also joined by a small group of protesters that had also attended nearly every party event, holding signs critical of its policies that read “There is no first or second to humankind” and “Japanese First is discrimination.”

Groups critical of Sanseito — including those that condemned the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric — took the party's gains in stride.

“The results of this election aren’t something to feel let down by right now,” said Ippei Torii, co-chair of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, one of eight rights groups that released a joint statement ahead of the Upper House vote blasting the rhetoric.

"If (Sanseito) directly addresses (issues about foreign nationals) in parliament, that presents us with an opportunity to debate and fact-check them,” he added.