Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba has vowed to stay on despite his coalition losing its upper house majority in elections that saw strong gains by a rightwing populist party.
While the ballot does not directly determine whether Ishiba’s minority government falls, it heaps pressure on the embattled leader, who also lost control of the more powerful lower house in October and who has never been popular within his own party.
Ishiba told a news conference he would remain in office to oversee tariff talks with the United States and other pressing matters such as rising consumer prices that are straining the world’s fourth largest economy.
His Liberal Democratic party (LDP) and coalition partner Komeito needed 50 seats to secure the 248-seat upper chamber in an election in which half the seats were up for grabs, but had only secured 47, with one seat left to declare, as of Monday morning.
Speaking to NHK earlier, Ishiba, 68, said he “solemnly” accepted the “harsh result”.
Asked whether he intended to stay on as prime minister and party leader, he said: “That’s right. It’s a difficult situation, and we have to take it very humbly and seriously.”
But the result also weakens Ishiba’s position just days before the country needs to negotiate a deal with the Trump administration to avert the imposition of punishing tariffs in its largest export market.
Ishiba later told TV Tokyo: “We are engaged in extremely critical tariff negotiations with the United States … we must never ruin these negotiations. It is only natural to devote our complete dedication and energy to realising our national interests.”
Japan faces a deadline of 1 August to strike a trade deal with the US.
Japanese imports are already subject to a 10% tariff, while the auto industry – which accounts for 8% of jobs – is reeling from a 25% levy.
Weak export data last week, which showed plummeting US-bound auto deliveries, stoked fears that Japan could tip into a technical recession.
The centre-left main opposition Constitutional Democratic party now has a total of 37 seats, with the centre-right Democratic Party for the People now on 22.
The far-right Sanseito party won 14 seats, up from one seat, giving it a significant presence in the upper house. Birthed on YouTube in 2020, it has been the election’s surprise package with its “Japanese first” campaign and warnings about a “silent invasion” of foreigners.
Turnout was 58%, six points higher than the last upper house vote, with a record number of people casting ballots in advance, in part due to the election falling in the middle of a three-day weekend. Sanseito has been appealing to a sizeable disillusioned segment of the population who feel ignored by the mainstream parties and rarely vote.
Opposition parties advocating for tax cuts and welfare spending have struck a chord with voters, exit polls showed, as rising consumer prices – particularly a jump in the cost of rice – have sowed frustration at the government’s response.
“The LDP was largely playing defence in this election, being on the wrong side of a key voter issue,” said David Boling, a director at the consulting firm Eurasia Group.
“Polls show that most households want a cut to the consumption tax to address inflation, something that the LDP opposes. Opposition parties seized on it and hammered that message home.”
The LDP has been urging for fiscal restraint, with one eye on a very jittery government bond market, as investors worry about Japan’s ability to refinance the world’s largest debt pile.
Sanseito, which first emerged during the Covid pandemic spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, has dragged once fringe political rhetoric into the mainstream and gained wider support among frustrated voters.
It remains to be seen whether the party can follow the path of other far-right parties with which it has drawn comparisons, such as Germany’s AfD and Reform UK.
“I am attending graduate school but there are no Japanese around me. All of them are foreigners,” said Yu Nagai, a 25-year-old student who voted for Sanseito earlier on Sunday.
“When I look at the way compensation and money are spent on foreigners, I think that Japanese people are a bit disrespected,” he said after casting his ballot at a polling station in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward.
In Japan, which has the world’s oldest population, foreign-born residents hit a record of about 3.8 million last year.
That is still just 3% of the total population, a much smaller fraction than in the US and Europe, but comes amid a tourism boom that has made foreigners far more visible across the country.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
