How Japan's snap election could end years of stability

Adam Withnall reports on a test of moderate politics from Tokyo, where worries about inflation, China and North Korea loom large, and the far right is waiting in the wings

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Japan heads to the polls today for one of the most uncertain elections in its recent history, where low turnout is expected to be a key factor despite the result having considerable ramifications for both the country’s future and its international standing.

Normally a beacon of stability in a region of turbulent geopolitics, Japan has been ruled by the same centre-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for 65 of the past 69 years. Its prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, won his party’s leadership last month and called the snap election to try to shore up his mandate from the public and quell divisions within his own ranks.

Yet polls show this is one of the few elections in post-war Japan where the LDP could fall short of a majority, with its reputation badly damaged by a corruption scandal and a stagnating economy that has ordinary Japanese people suffering with rising costs of living.

One poll for the Asahi newspaper this week forecast that the LDP could lose as many as 50 of its 247 seats in the lower chamber and its coalition partner Komeito could end up with fewer than 30, putting the two below the 233 needed for a majority. That would spell the kind of political uncertainty not seen since 2009, and begin a period of power-sharing talks among parties with a range of views on how Japan can maintain peace and security in the face of increasingly belligerent neighbours China, Russia and North Korea.

Ishiba is seen as a moderate, having expressed cautious support for the right of married couples to have different names and adding that is it important to “closely monitor public opinion” when it comes to same-sex marriages. His victory in the LDP leadership election earlier this month represents a shift towards the centre after more than a decade defined by the conservative politics of the late Shinzo Abe and his successor Fumio Kishida.