Source: Global Times
[Global Times reporter Yue Linwei Cheng Kai] The results of japan's 49th House of Representatives election were announced on the 1st. The LDP won 261 seats, and the ruling coalition between the LDP and the Komeito Party won a total of 293 seats, and the LDP won the election and will continue to rule jointly with the Komeito Party. Japanese media said that although the ruling coalition still maintains a majority of seats, public doubts about the current government were also exposed in the election, and a number of senior LDP lawmakers lost in the election. Some analysts said that the election of the Senate next year will be no small challenge to the Kishida government.
Kishida Fumio infographic
According to Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported on the 1st, the election results show that the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party won 293 seats in the House of Representatives in 465 seats, significantly exceeding the 233-seat victory and defeat line set by Japanese Prime Minister and Liberal Democratic Party President Fumio Kishida before the election, and the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party will continue to govern jointly. Among them, the Liberal Democratic Party won 261 seats, a decrease of 15 seats, and the Komeito Party won 32 seats, an increase of 3 seats. According to a report by The Japan Jiji News Agency on the 1st, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party decided to convene a special diet on the 10th of this month to confirm Kishida's retention as prime minister.
According to reports, before the election, japan's Constitutional Democratic Party, the Japanese Communist Party and other five opposition parties formed a united trend, hoping to form an obstacle to the Liberal Democratic Party. However, the final results show that the largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, not only did not increase the number of seats in this election, but decreased by 13, retaining only 96 seats.
According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, the number of seats won by the Japan Restoration Association was about four times that of before the election, increasing to 41 seats, becoming the third largest political party in the House of Representatives and considered the "biggest winner" of the opposition. According to the report, this means that the number of seats in the parliament of forces with a positive attitude towards constitutional revision exceeds 2/3 of the total number (310 seats), which is enough to start the constitutional revision process.
"It was a tough election, but the will of the people is already showing – they want to create the country's future under the leadership of the Stable Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito ruling coalition under the Kishida government." On the 1st, Kishida Fumio said when announcing his victory. He also mentioned that the government will develop an economic stimulus package by mid-November and include it in an additional budget intended for adoption this year. Kishida said he would consider reviving the government's "Go Travel" initiative to boost domestic tourism and vowed to push the constitutional debate. The Yomiuri Shimbun mentioned that Kishida Fumio had repeatedly mentioned the establishment of the new "Emergency Clause" and four items of the LDP's draft constitution revision, such as the inclusion of the "Self-Defense Force Clause" in Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, and claimed that "the goal is to achieve it during his term as president."
According to Japan's Sankei Shimbun, a more obvious feature of the Japanese House of Representatives election has emerged - "generation rotation", that is, senior politicians have lost one after another in the election. Among them, the defeat of the LDP's "number two person" and secretary general Gan Liming is considered to be the LDP's biggest defeat in this general election, and he is also the first incumbent secretary general in the history of the LDP to lose in a single constituency election. Although "revived" through a proportional representation system, Gan Liming has offered to resign as LDP's chief secretary. According to the latest report from Kyodo News Agency, Kishida Fumio is considering having Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi serve as the post of secretary general, and will officially announce the decision at the LDP general affairs meeting on the 4th. Some Japanese media believe that GanLiming's unexpected defeat may enhance Kishida's control over the Liberal Democratic Party and weaken the elderly politics centered on former Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Aso Taro.
In addition to Gan Liming, the LDP also lost a number of MPs who had served as cabinet ministers. Kyodo Believes that the political mistrust caused by the two administrations of Abe and Suga, who are reluctant to explain their responsibilities on the "politics and money" issue and the response to the new crown pneumonia epidemic, has been deeply rooted, and even if there is a "makeover" with Kishida as prime minister, it cannot be eliminated.
According to an editorial in Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Kishida, who has just become prime minister, lacks practical achievements, and concepts such as "attaching importance to distribution" and "new capitalism" also lack concrete operability, and the election results reflect the lack of voter evaluation of this. Kishida needs to restore people's trust in politics and find a prescription for solving many issues in domestic and foreign affairs through a constructive dialogue with the opposition party.
Kyodo News Agency commented that Kishida Fumio positioned the election as "choosing the election of the future." However, in the election campaign, around the scale of economic countermeasures and the question of "whether to grow first or distribute first", neither the ruling party nor the opposition party has been able to provide a concrete blueprint to the people and fail to show the future of the country. Japan's development is at an important crossroads, and without a big discussion that focuses on the next 10 or 20 years, even if voters are allowed to "choose the future", they will have no choice.
The editorial of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun pointed out that the important issue for the current Japanese government is to strengthen the preparation for the "sixth wave" of the epidemic during the stabilization of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and at the same time introduce specific countermeasures to restore the economy. Some analysts said that after the House of Representatives election, Japan will usher in the house election next July, which is a big challenge for kishida and the Liberal Democratic Party. If the LDP loses the House of Councillors elections, Japan will repeat the phenomenon of "distorting the Diet" (the ruling party controls the House of Representatives, and the opposition parties control the House of Councillors), which will lead to a new period of instability in Japanese politics.