Japan enters an era of political instability

The result of the general election in Japan has thrown the country into uncertain times, politically

Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to the media at the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) headquarters in Tokyo on October 27, 2024
(Image credit: TAKASHI AOYAMA / Contributor)

Japan’s ruling coalition lost its majority in its latest general election, throwing the country “into the kind of political instability not seen for decades”, says Adam Withnall in The Independent. Amid deep voter apathy – turnout was just 53.8% – prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior coalition partner Komeito ended up with 215 seats in Japan’s Diet, down from 279 and “well short” of the 233 needed to form a government. It is the worst result for the LDP, which has ruled Japan since 1955 with only two short breaks, since 2009.

A chastened Ishiba conceded that the result reflected ongoing public “distrust and anger”, say Tamayo Muto and Sayumi Take in Nikkei Asia. Since last year, the LDP has been “dogged” by a scandal in which senior party members were illegally given money for campaigning out of a secret slush fund. Ishida was elected party leader in September largely because of his promise to hold individuals accountable, and he called a snap election three days later to try to capitalise on his honeymoon period, says Julian Ryall in The South China Morning Post. Then, in the final week of the election campaigning, it was revealed that some of these individuals, who had been forced to stand as independents, were receiving party money anyway.

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Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.