New Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s snap election gamble could backfire this Sunday, with his ruling party at risk of losing its majority for the first time in 15 years.
Ishiba took office and called an election less than a month ago after a tough contest within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed for all but four of the last 69 years.
“This is an attempt to create a new Japan that will drastically change the nature of Japanese society,” he said. “To boldly carry out this major change, we need the confidence of the people.”
But polls suggest the LDP could fall short of the 233 lower house seats needed for a majority for the first time since 2009. They currently hold 256 seats.
This would be problematic enough, but according to some surveys, Ishiba will not be able to create a government without forging other coalitions, even with the Komeito party, its junior coalition partner.
The popularity of Yoshihiko Noda, the former prime minister and current leader of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party, who is 67 years old and the same age as Ishiba, isn’t helping either.
Noda’s stance “is sort of similar to the LDP’s. He is basically a conservative,” Masato Kamikubo, a political scientist at Ritsumeikan University, told AFP.
“The CDP or Noda can be an alternative to the LDP. Many voters think so,” Kamikubo said.
