Understanding Japan’s Snap Elections: A Q&A With Mami Mizutori
On February 8, Japanese voters will head to the polls for their third national election in fifteen months. This is unusual even by Japanese standards, where national elections are held more frequently than in other democracies. In addition, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae, the first female prime minister in the entire history of Japanese modern politics, made the decision to dissolve the Diet and call for a snap election after having been in that position for barely three months. According to the polls, she was enjoying an extremely high support rate of around 70 percent when she made this decision. What prompted her to go forward? Is this a big gamble? Perry World House spoke with PWH Distinguished Visiting Fellow Mami Mizutori about the upcoming elections and their implications for Japanese policy and politics.
PWH: Japan is holding a snap election on February 8, where all 465 seats of the Japanese House of Representatives are open. What led to this snap election?
MM: It is generally understood that prime ministers have the power to dissolve the Diet and call for elections in two instances. The first is when a vote of no confidence in the government is passed in the Diet. This is firmly embedded in the Constitution. At that point, the prime minister has the choice to either resign or dissolve the Parliament. The second is when the prime minister believes that he or she has to seek the direct approval of the populace to a crucial change in policy issues. Although this type of dissolution, with snap elections following, has not happened infrequently in Japan, it is a point of dispute amongst legal experts and political scientists concerning how far the prime minister could go in exercising this so called ‘exclusive power’ to dissolve the Diet.
The exact reason given by the prime minister in taking this important decision matters. To give a good example, albeit from another country, Teresa May, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, dissolved the Parliament in 2017 and called for a general election to seek approval for her Brexit implementation policies. This is arguably a good reason to call a snap election. This time, Prime Minister Takaichi claims that there are two main reasons for her decision. The first is that she intends to drive forward a big change in the direction of fiscal policy to be both “aggressive and responsible.” The second is to seek the approval of the new coalition that she forged with the Nippon Ishin Party since her appointment as prime minister. This coalition was born because her party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is currently not the majority party in either the Lower or Upper House of the Diet. After Ms. Takaichi became Prime Minister in October last year, the LDP’s long-time coalition partner, the Komeito Party, decided to leave the coalition. She needed to find a new partner to secure majority seats in order to move forward her policies. Otherwise she would have been condemned to go through tough negotiations and to forge partnerships with different parties for each and every implementation of a policy which required voting in the Diet.
Are the reasons that Prime Minister Takaichi gave good enough to justify this snap election? Pundits are saying that the main reason why the prime minister made the decision is to capitalise on her high support rate hoping that this will translate into votes for the LDP resulting in a majority position in the Diet. The jury is out. There are less than three weeks between the dissolution of the Diet and the election, making the campaign period extremely short.
PWH: What are the biggest issues facing the Japanese electorate?
MM: The biggest issue concerning the Japanese electorate is by far the economy. Following decades of deflation when neither prices nor wages went up, the country has been plunged into inflation with wage rises not catching up. This situation is affecting everyone but most acutely young to middle aged people who are in the process of establishing their professional lives, getting married, and raising families. Furthermore, although in general it is perceived that the older generation who have savings are better off in this situation, inflation eats up the value of savings and for those who rely solely on their pension for daily expenses the situation is growing more challenging to make ends meet.
This is why all the political parties going into this election are making the affordability issue their primary target. Abolishing consumption tax on food, which currently stands at eight percent, is lower than the ten percent on most other products and services. This is included in the manifesto of major parties including the LDP. This may sound like an immediate solution to alleviate the burden of consumers. However, it is important to note that consumption tax is the core revenue to sustain the high level of social security spending in Japan. In addition, economists are arguing that the positive impact of this policy on each person could be quite limited.
In this regard, the “aggressive and responsible fiscal policy” which the Primes Minister vows to promote can be tricky. While the Prime Minister wants to pump money into the economy for innovation and growth, at the same time social security spending is rising. In addition, defense spending, which until not long ago was capped at one percent of the GDP, is now increasing rapidly with the aim to augment it to two percent of the GDP by FY 2027. The question is how are all this spending going to be “responsibly” financed? The fiscal deficit of Japan is already over 200 percent of the GDP, making it the highest amongst developed countries. Can Prime Minister Takaichi take forward her fiscal policy without rattling the market?
The other issue which has come to the surface in recent years is the so called “Foreigner Problem.” This is the direct translation from the matter is phrased in Japanese, creating an ugly divide among “us and them,” “Japanese and foreigners.” There is a reason why we see more and more foreigners coming to Japan as workers. Japan has one of the fastest aging populations in the world combined with depopulation in the rural areas. The reality is that there are just not enough people to work in the service industry, the health sector, care-homes, construction sites, agriculture and fishery. Any field, you name it, and labor is in short supply. I would argue with conviction that the smooth and pleasant service that the Japanese and also tourists from abroad enjoy and marvel is sustained by these foreign workers. Yes, there are undoubtedly issues that are emerging when you have a surge of foreigners in the country, and they must be tackled for the sake of everyone. But by and large they are hard-working, law-abiding and tax-paying people. The solution is not to blame everything that goes wrong in Japan on the presence of foreigners. But sadly, in the recent political scene in Japan, there is a surge of new parties which focuses on this issue and are gaining popularity, such as the Sanseito Party with their slogan “Japanese First.”
PWH: What is the expected outcome of February election?
MM: At this time when I am writing this piece, one week from election day, it is predicted that the LDP could most possibly gain the majority of seats. Therefore, mission accomplished for the Prime Minister. One important point to note is that while the LDP was always conceived as the conservative party in Japan, it also has a long tradition of being the home of politicians from a wide range of political beliefs from moderate liberal to moderate conservative and some firmly conservative. But never radically conservative. This was the strength of LDP, which allowed it to remain as the dominant ruling party during most of the post-war years. Since Prime Minister Abe Shinzō’s reign, the party has been leaning more toward hard conservatism, and Prime Minister Takaichi sees herself as his legitimate successor. She is also keen to tackle the “Foreigner Problem.”
If the outcome of the election is the resurgence of the LDP in its current guise of hard conservatism, and the further rise of new parties pressing for large spending and the promotion of the “Japanese First” agenda, I wonder in which direction this will take Japan when it faces numerous challenges in the international order.
In short, what is focused on and debated about during this short election campaign seems quite inward-looking. Absent is any real debate concerning Japan’s role in the world and its possible role in tackling global challenges such as the climate change, the distortion to free trade, and rising humanitarian suffering.
