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Ishiba Hangs on to Top Job... Just

Japan’s LDP plunged into minority government.

New Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba. The Good Oil. Photoshop by Lushington Brady.

As I’ve been reporting, Japanese politics has been going through an unusual period of instability in recent months. A little more stability has returned, with PM Shigeru Ishiba hanging on to his job following a run-off vote in the Diet.

Ishiba still has a long and rocky road ahead, though.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has won a run-off vote in parliament to stay in his post, after an election setback last month that saw his coalition lose its majority in the lower house.

Ishiba, 67, took over as prime minister from Fumio Kishida, who stepped down in September amid a series of scandals that rattled public trust in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) party.

In an extraordinary parliament session on Monday, Ishiba defeated Yoshihiko Noda, the leader of the main opposition party Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Such uncertainty is a rare situation for a country whose post-war politics have long been remarkably stable (-ish, anyway). The Liberal Democratic Party has governed for all but a handful of years since 1955. In recent years, though, successive LDP prime ministers have been plagued with scandals and forced to resign. When Kishida resigned, his successor, Ishiba, gambled on a snap election.

It blew up in his face, with the LDP and its longtime partner, Komeito, losing their majority in the Diet.

Ishiba will now have to navigate hostilities within his party, economic woes and a period of flux in international relations.

As the leader of a minority government, he also faces the challenge of having to heed to demands from the opposition bloc for any future bills or budget to pass – with fears of potential political gridlock in a hung parliament.

Minority government, as ever, is proving to be something of a Pyrrhic victory.

Ishiba faces years ahead of walking a delicate tightrope. To get through the normal business of government – passing budgets and enacting legislation – Ishiba will have to negotiate at every step with his opponents.

Ishiba, also LDP president, met with [Democratic Party for the People (DPP)] leader Yuichiro Tamaki and Yoshihiko Noda, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, separately on Monday, before the day's parliament votes in which the prime minister secured re-election, to seek their support for his administration.

“We want to take the opposition’s views into account humbly and decide each and every thing in a transparent way,” he said.

Which need not necessarily be a bad thing. Hung parliaments can be a way of keeping government in check.

For the past 12 years or so, the LDP has dominated Japanese politics, so bills and budgets only needed approval from the government and the LDP-Komeito coalition to be passed by the parliament. Now that the ruling camp has lost its Lower House majority, however, open discussions between the ruling and opposition sides are indispensable.

The opposition bloc gained the chairpersonships for seven of the lower chamber’s 17 standing committees, including the Budget Committee, the main battlefield for debates on key issues. Before the election, ruling bloc members chaired 15 committees.

Expecting very tough parliamentary deliberations under the circumstances, the LDP has instructed government agencies and ministries to narrow down bills to be submitted to the parliament.

Ishiba is putting a brave face on it all, allegedly telling confidantes that the LDP and DPP share similar policies.

At the same time, the opposition parties are not exactly united. In the run-off vote to name a prime minister, a bid by Noda failed when other opposition MPs voted for their own party leaders instead.

How the new Diet will pan out will be seen over the coming months as the LDP gets down to the business of drafting their first budget for 2025. Parliamentary sessions resume in January.


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