The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan may lose its parliamentary majority, according to exit polls.
The coalition Japan, which has ruled the country almost uninterruptedly since the middle of the 1950s, and its junior coalition partner Komeito have a good chance of winning between 174 and 254 of the 465 seats in the lower house of parliament. On the other hand, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) of Japan was predicted to win 128 seats to 191.
The result could force the LDP or CDP to enter into power-sharing agreements with other parties to form a government. A Nippon TV poll showed the ruling coalition would win 198 seats and the CDP 157. Both fell short of the 233 seats needed to achieve a majority as voters chastised Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s party over a funding scandal and inflation.
Ishiba called a snap election immediately after being elected party chief last month, hoping to win a public mandate for his premiership. He warned the LDP had a lot of work to do to regain public confidence after months of controversy over the undisclosed shadow funds of lawmakers. Days before the vote, Ishiba appeared to be blindsided when media reported that the party allocated millions of yen for election campaigns to local party branches whose candidates had lost the party’s support.
The outcome raised hopes among Japan’s opposition that the scandal would trigger a repeat of the 2009 lower house elections, the last time the LDP was ousted. CDP leader Yoshihiko Noda accused the LDP of ignoring the needs of ordinary people, as polls showed most voters wanted action on rising prices as well as tax cuts and wage increases.
The political controversy is likely to shake up markets and become a major source of pain for the Bank of Japan unless Ishiba picks a partner who favours keeping interest rates near zero while the central bank wants to gradually raise them. While Japanese stocks fell 2.7 per cent last week on the Nikkei index after signs that the ruling coalition could lose its majority.
