Kishida Fumio handily led his party to re-election, but his agenda remains vague
had lost only 15 seats, leaving it with 261, single-handedly clearing the threshold for both a simple majority and also an “absolute stable majority”, which means that the party can chair and control all parliamentary standing committees. That is a relief for Mr Kishida. And it is a devastating defeat for Japan’s opposition, which had hoped to capitalise on public discontent. Instead, the biggest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan , lost 13 seats.
The opposition’s humiliation is in part the result of potent memories of its messy rule from 2009 to 2012. And it is in part because of bad strategy. Theco-ordinated with the Japan Communist Party to put forward unified opposition candidates in many districts, which alienated its own supporters. It also repelled independents, who are around 40% of the electorate and who turned out in relatively low numbers this year. Overall turnout was low, too, at just 56%.
Nonetheless, the results are no ringing endorsement of the status quo. Anti-establishment sentiment flowed instead to an upstart libertarian populist outfit based in Osaka, the Japan Innovation Party, which more than tripled its seats, from 11 to 41. It has limited appeal beyond its home region, and it is rare for regional parties to go national in Japan.when presented with an alternative seen as competent.
Mr Kishida does promise big-sounding changes. He ran his campaign calling for a “new model of capitalism”, contrasting himself with Abe Shinzo, a former prime minister whose “Abenomics” agenda had mixed results. But no one, from Japanese business leaders to those on Mr Kishida’s “new capitalism” council, seems to have much idea what he means by it. Whatever the changes turn out to be, they are unlikely to be radical.
Vagueness pervades Mr Kishida’s other big agenda items, too. He celebrated his victory by making his debut on the world stage, joining other world leaders at the26 summit in Glasgow. Though he promised an additional $10bn in funding to support measures for decarbonisation elsewhere in Asia, he offered little detail on how Japan plans to reach its own pledge to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
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