Opposition seeks answers after heavy Upper House election defeat

Reports from Sunday’s Upper House election all echo the same outcome: a resounding victory for the ruling coalition.

After all, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito earned a stable majority and gained a net positive seven seats above their pre-election total — their best showing for an Upper House vote since 2013. Some observers have come to the conclusion that the LDP has succeeded in gaining voter support and renewing its mandate.

But such a conclusion absolves opposition parties of their share of responsibility for this outcome. This should have been a far more contested election than it was, but the opposition once again failed to make the moves necessary to take a real shot at the ruling coalition. Instead, they remain mired in soul-searching that will continue to have implications for Japanese politics. There is an opportunity to rebound in the next year, but only if the opposition parties can find a way to tap into four core elements of the political strategy needed for success.

To understand what the opposition parties must do to succeed, it is first necessary to recap how they failed this past weekend.

A major surprise heading into this election was the fact that the opposition had what amounts to an eternity in politics to generate momentum, but they still seemed well behind the power curve. Unlike a Lower House election, the Upper House vote happens on routine intervals — once every three years. While the exact date was not known until recently, every political party knew that it would happen sometime in July 2022. The opposition had an entire parliamentary session take the wind out of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s sails and build to a crescendo of support coming into this election, and their failure to take advantage of that reflected in the outcomes from this past Sunday.

In short, every major opposition party performed worse than they did in the Lower House election last year. We can determine this by breaking down the success rates of the individual parties; that is, the percentage of seats won based on the number of candidates run. For example, in the Lower House election last year, the Constitutional Democratic Party had a success rate of 40%, but that dropped to 33% for this Upper House election. The Nippon Ishin no Kai fared even worse, dropping from a 42% success rate down to just 26%. Meanwhile, the Japan Communist Party maintained the same abysmal success rate of about 8%. For context, the LDP and Komeito enjoyed a 76% and 77% success rate, respectively.

In short, the problem is not that the opposition parties do not have candidates available to run — it is that they simply do not win. The best example of this was the Anti-NHK Party, which ran 82 candidates but only managed to secure a single seat.

So, what gives? Why are the opposition parties performing so poorly?

To answer those questions, it is necessary to break down the opposition strategy into four elements.

First is the approach that the opposition takes. Simply put, is the opposition trying to win by presenting a clear and distinguishable policy platform, by courting the ruling coalition, or by simply positioning itself as the anti-LDP option?

The second element is the party’s foundation at the prefectural and municipal levels. Does the opposition party have a strong base of support that is capable of generating consistent voter turnout? Is this base regional or national, and how far into local communities does it extend?

The third element is cooperation amongst the opposition. Are the opposition parties competing or cooperating with each other? Are they splitting votes and stealing each others’ seats instead of winning them from the ruling coalition?

The last element is the ability to generate voter attention. This can come by highlighting specific position issues such as U.S. bases in Okinawa or the consumption tax, or it could be done by exploiting scandals involving members of the ruling coalition.

Right now, the opposition parties are not able to bring those four elements together coherently or effectively. The Constitutional Democratic Party offers an example of this: Back in 2017 when the party formed, the CDP positioned itself as a true center-left party that would be an alternative to the LDP. The CDP gave up that identity when it decided to band together with the Japan Communist Party and Democratic Party for the People in the past two national elections. After poor performances in the last two votes, the CDP decided to adopt a more centrist approach, even entertaining a more cooperative attitude with the LDP, but that did nothing to stir Japanese voters.

If the opposition parties hope to succeed, they have to choose a clear and consistent path. They cannot simply count on the hope that positioning themselves as anti-LDP parties will be enough. That means they must decide whether to court the ruling coalition or establish themselves as true opposition parties with their own brands and identities that resonate with the Japanese public.

For those courting the LDP and Komeito, it is not enough to be cooperative; rather, the only answer for them is to negotiate to become a formal part of the coalition. Some may remember that the LDP-Komeito coalition actually started off as the LDP-Komeito-Liberal Party coalition, partnering with Ichiro Ozawa, who later co-led the Democratic Party of Japan in winning control of the government in 2009. This negotiation will necessitate many concessions from a party that is currently in the opposition, but it is a viable option for a group like the Nippon Ishin no Kai, especially as the LDP is looking to gain support for constitutional amendment.

For those seeking to establish themselves as a true opposition party, they cannot just rely on a smattering of position issues to win support. They need a coherent and consistent policy manifesto that enables them to have an independent political identity. The consistency is needed to enable them to set down roots among local constituencies and build a firm base.

The first opportunity for opposition parties to expand their base of power will come in the April 2023 unified elections, and their focus must be on building up their municipal and prefectural candidates. They can help that by creating policy manifestos that are predicated heavily on local issues that matter for constituencies across Japan. Voters tend to put first things first, and while the LDP talks about constitutional amendment and security, the ruling party is giving the opposition a chance to position themselves as the grassroots parties.

In the meantime, if there are scandals or missteps from the Kishida administration, the opposition can exploit it; they just cannot pin their hopes on those things happening.

Thus, the available paths are clear and the necessary elements are evident. The question now is whether Japan’s opposition parties will be able to end their soul searching and pursue a viable and consistent political strategy. Until they do, we should expect to see the sort of election results we witnessed last weekend.

Michael MacArthur Bosack is the special adviser for government relations at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. He previously served in the Japanese government as a Mansfield fellow.