Japan’s ruling coalition set to lose parliamentary majority, exit polls show
JAPAN’S ruling coalition may fall short of a parliamentary majority, exit polls for Sunday’s (Oct 27) general election showed, raising uncertainty over the make-up of the government of the world’s fourth-largest economy.
A poll by national broadcaster NHK showed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan for almost all of its post-war history, and junior coalition partner were set to win between 174 and 254 of the 465 seats in the lower house of Japan’s parliament.
The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) is predicted to win 128 to 191 seats. The outcome may force the LDP or CDPJ into power-sharing agreements with other parties to form a government.
A poll by Nippon TV showed that the ruling coalition would win 198 seats to the CDPJ’s 157, both well short of the 233 seats needed to reach a majority, as voters punished Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s party over a funding scandal and inflation.
“I think these results are the outcome of a unsparing verdict on the LDP... coming from various factors, including how we have not been able to settle the political money issue from two winters ago,” Shinjiro Koizumi, the LDP’s election chief, told NHK.
Ishiba called the snap poll immediately after being elected to head the party last month, hoping to win a public mandate for his premiership. His predecessor Fumio Kishida quit after his support cratered, due to anger over a cost-of-living crunch and a scandal involving unrecorded donations to lawmakers.
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The uncertainty comes nine days before US voters choose a new president, and as Japan faces economic headwinds and increasingly tense relations with neighbouring China.
The LDP has held an outright majority since it returned to power in 2012, after a brief spell of CDPJ rule.
The polls suggest that deals with smaller parties, such as the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) or the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), could prove key for whoever emerges victorious.
The DPP is expected to win 20 to 33 seats and JIP 28 to 45 seats, according to NHK’s exit poll.
But both propose policies at odds with the LDP line.
The DPP calls for halving Japan’s 10 per cent sales tax until real wages rise, a policy not endorsed by the LDP, while the JIP has pledged tougher donation rules to clean up politics.
The JIP opposes further rate hikes, and the DPP leader has said that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) may have been hasty in raising rates, while the central bank wants to gradually wean Japan off decades of massive monetary stimulus.
Political wrangling could roil markets and be a headache for the BOJ, if Ishiba chooses a partner that favours maintaining near-zero interest rates when the central bank wants to gradually raise them.
Japanese shares fell 2.7 per cent last week on the benchmark Nikkei index, after opinion polls first indicated the ruling coalition could lose its majority.
“With a more fluid political landscape, pushing through economic policies that include raising taxes, such as to fund defence spending, will become much harder,” said Masafumi Fujihara, an associate professor of politics at Yamanashi University. “Without a strong government, it would be more difficult for the BOJ to raise rates and keep the weak yen under control.” REUTERS
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