Eyes to be on Whether Japan's Ruling Bloc Can Win 50 Seats in Upper House Vote; Opposition Parties Aim to be on the Offensive After Tokyo Election Results
Focus will be on whether the ruling parties can win the 50 seats needed to maintain a majority in the 248-seat upper house.
The Liberal Democratic Party, which suffered a major defeat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election on Sunday, is rushing to rebuild itself in preparation for the July 20 election. Opposition parties, on the other hand, have been gaining momentum following the Tokyo election and aim to be on the offensive through candidate coordination and other means.
'We discussed the need to learn from the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election and work hard for the upper house election,' said Shinji Inoue, the chairman of the LDP's Tokyo metropolitan chapter and former Expo minister, to reporters after an emergency meeting of the chapter at LDP headquarters on Tuesday.
At the meeting, attendees expressed various opinions, including that the LDP's policies did not quite appeal to voters. The number of seats the party won in Sunday's election was a record low for the LDP in a Tokyo assembly election.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is also LDP president, said Monday that the goal for the upcoming election is to maintain a majority, or hold at least a combined 125 seats between the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito.
The LDP holds 62 seats that are not up for grabs this election, while Komeito has 13, so the goal can be achieved by winning 50 seats in the upcoming upper house election.
'It's important for the LDP and Komeito to maintain a majority in the upper house to help the government ensure stable management,' Komeito Secretary General Makoto Nishida said Tuesday.
This time, 125 seats will be contested, 124 of which are held by members whose terms are set to end and one seat to fill a vacancy in the Tokyo constituency.
As winning 63 seats this election would mean winning a majority of the contested seats, some within the LDP are dissatisfied with the goal set by Ishiba.
'That's too low of a target,' a former cabinet minister said.
But in light of the major defeat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, the view that the LDP cannot be optimistic is growing.
LDP executives are hoping the poor results in the Tokyo election will have a motivating effect, with one saying, 'With the results of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election being this bad, [our candidates] will have to fight hard in the upper house election.'
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan held an election strategy meeting on Tuesday and confirmed a policy to make every effort to stop the ruling parties from securing a majority in the upper house election.
At the start of the meeting, CDPJ chief Yoshihiko Noda, referring to his party's five-seat increase in the Tokyo assembly election, said: 'The approach of protecting people from high prices has proven effective. We will confidently appeal to voters by talking about this policy during the upper house election [campaign] as well.'
The CDPJ plans to coordinate and consolidate candidates with the Japanese Communist Party in the two-seat constituencies in which one seat is up for grabs. According to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey, the two parties are competing in seven of the 32 such constituencies, and they are trying to quickly reach an agreement.
The Japan Innovation Party plans to announce its campaign pledges for the upcoming election on June 30. It aims to win at least six seats up for grabs. The party is expected to push for a reduction in social insurance premiums, among other items, during the campaign.
The Democratic Party for the People, which focuses on supporting young people and those of working age, aims to secure at least 16 seats.
DPFP leader Yuichiro Tamaki criticized the government for scheduling the upper house election in the middle of a three-day holiday.
'If they think that young people won't vote and that parties supported by elderly people will benefit [from such scheduling], they will face a severe backlash,' Tamaki said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
3 hours ago
Japan Upper House Election Campaigning Kicks Off
News from Japan Politics Jul 3, 2025 20:06 (JST) Tokyo, July 3 (Jiji Press)--Over 500 people filed their candidacies on Thursday for the July 20 election for Japan's House of Councillors, kicking off their 17-day campaigning for seats in the upper chamber of parliament. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba aims to have his ruling coalition maintain its Upper House majority, while opposition parties hope to force the ruling bloc into a minority. The ruling coalition lost its majority in the House of Representatives, the lower parliamentary chamber, in last year's election. One of the major campaign issues in the Upper House race is ways to cushion the impact of higher prices and U.S. President Donald Trump's steep tariffs on Japanese households and businesses. On Thursday, 522 people filed their candidacies for the 125 seats up for grabs in the 248-seat Upper House. They are 350 candidates for 75 prefectural constituency seats and 172 candidates for 50 proportional representation seats. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
Japan Times
7 hours ago
- Japan Times
South Korea's President Lee eager to visit Japan soon
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung showed his intention to visit Japan at an early date by resuming the two countries' "shuttle diplomacy," or mutual visits by their leaders, in a news conference held in Seoul on Thursday to mark a month after he took office. With the two nations commemorating this year the 60th anniversary of diplomatic normalization, Lee also voiced his hope that Tokyo and Seoul will release a new bilateral statement, following the 1998 Japan-South Korea joint declaration, which called on the two East Asian neighbors to build a future-oriented relationship. Lee, who took office June 4, held his first in-person meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba later that month, on the sidelines of the summit of the Group of Seven major countries in Canada, to which the South Korean leader was invited as a guest. Lee said he himself proposed reviving the shuttle diplomacy with Japan, adding that he intended to visit Japan early but that the Japanese side became busy due to the House of Councilors election scheduled for July 20. The president expressed hope to promote dialogue with the Japanese side through repeated mutual visits in order to reduce misunderstandings and facilitate cooperation. Since his inauguration, Lee has engaged in summit diplomacy in earnest, including the participation in the summit among the G7 countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States plus the European Union. At the news conference, he emphasized his plan of improving ties with China and Russia in what he called practical diplomacy, in addition to advancing cooperation with Japan and the United States. On U.S. President Donald Trump's high tariff policy, Lee said that his administration will do its best in its negotiations with the U.S. side to draw a mutually beneficial result. Many South Korean presidents in the past held news conferences about 100 days after taking office. Lee chose to meet with the press a month after becoming president in the belief that he needs to communicate his administration's policy to the public early as he took office without a transition period following the ouster of his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, over his martial law declaration.
The Mainichi
8 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Editorial: Start of Japan upper house race a chance to break political stagnation
Today, July 3, marks the official start of campaigning for the House of Councillors election. Can the sense of stagnation in Japanese politics, deepened under a minority ruling coalition, be overcome? The focus is on whether the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner Komeito, which together suffered a major defeat in last autumn's House of Representatives election, can maintain a majority in the House of Councillors including the seats not being contested this time. This is in fact the goal presented by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The coalition parties will reach this target if they secure 50 of the 125 seats that are up for grabs. This low aim -- below the usual goal of securing a majority of contested seats -- reflects the administration's predicament amid declining approval ratings. If the coalition maintains a majority in the upper house, then the prime minister has two options: secure a majority of votes by obtaining cooperation from some opposition parties on a bill by bill basis in the lower house, as it has done to date, or stabilize the administration by expanding the coalition framework, for example. However, if the LDP and Komeito fall to become minorities in both houses, calls for the prime minister's resignation are certain to erupt from both within and outside the party. LDP-Komeito coalition reaching its limits While the House of Representatives election is considered an election to pick the government administration, the House of Councillors election is often seen as a midterm evaluation of the current administration. But this time voters are not judging the Ishiba administration alone. What is being questioned first of all is the system of LDP politics that has persisted for many years. Founded 70 years ago, the LDP has governed as a mass party encompassing a wide range of ideologies from conservative to liberal. It maintained a majority in the Diet over the years by reflecting the demands of industry groups and others in its measures and policies in exchange for "votes and money." Criticism of money-driven politics grew, leading to the LDP's temporary loss of power in the early 1990s. After the political reforms of the Heisei era, the party returned to power, but the strength of its support groups waned with the changing times. It was Komeito, with its strong support base, that compensated for the LDP's decline. Over a period of around a quarter of a century, a stable coalition government was built. However, under the LDP's predominance since the second Shinzo Abe administration, its tendency to disregard the Diet grew stronger. Komeito, moreover, was unable to make its presence felt in its role of serving as a brake on security policy and other measures. It was in this context that the slush fund scandal involving LDP factions came to light. The issue of "money in politics" once again hit the administration, contributing to the LDP-Komeito coalition's major setback in last year's lower house election. Prime Minister Ishiba, facing the need to tide over the predicament, called for a "deliberative Diet," seeking cooperation from opposition parties. In practice, however, he was often seen prioritizing maintaining power through numbers by accepting demands by some opposition parties in discussions behind closed doors. An opinion poll conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun has found that public views on the appropriate form for the administration after the upper house election was divided roughly evenly between a "framework with some opposition parties added to the LDP-Komeito alliance" and an "opposition party-centered" one, each supported by around 25% of respondents. Only a little over 10% supported the continuation of the LDP-Komeito government. It seems the coalition is reaching its limits. The behavior of the opposition parties also comes under scrutiny in the upper house election. While remaining fixated on implementing policies aimed at specific support bases, they are weak in terms of taking responsibility for the long-term governance of the nation. This comes against the backdrop of the strong showing among emerging parties that are absorbing public dissatisfaction by criticizing established parties for failing to address social issues like widening inequality. Overall policy picture called into question The ruling coalition is also being dragged along by the trend of competing for credit through pork-barrel policies. Symbolic of this are measures to counter rising prices, which have been cited as a focal point of the upper house contest. It has become a case of pandering to the public with the choice of cash handouts or tax cuts. Meanwhile, serious fiscal issues are being left unaddressed. Symptomatic treatment is not what is required. The Reinventing Infrastructure of Wisdom and Action (ReIWA) conference, composed of private experts, has urged political parties to present not only individual policies but their "overall policy frameworks." The parties should present blueprints for nation-building with an eye on the future and compete over policies head-on. With a rapidly declining population, how can Japan increase the sustainability of its social security system? And with deepening turmoil in the international situation, how should Japan engage with the "America First" administration of U.S. President Donald Trump? Domestic and overseas issues are becoming more serious. The continuing decline in voter turnout in recent national elections in Japan is a matter of concern. In the previous House of Councillors election, voter turnout was 52.05%, meaning that roughly one out of every two people were abstaining from their right to vote. It is hoped that all parties will engage in robust debate that attracts voters. Each and every voter's choice will determine the direction of a new "form of politics." We hope the upcoming election will be an opportunity to contemplate the future without turning a blind eye to the problems faced by society.
