Japanese lawmakers are set to decide whether Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba would remain the country’s leader after his coalition lost its parliamentary majority in lower house elections late last month, Reuters reported.
Ishiba, who called a snap election after taking office on 1 October, is expected to win as his Liberal Democratic Party and coalition partner Komeito won the most seats in the election, losing the majority held since 2012.
The Japanese leader will face the prospect of leading a fragile minority government at a time when Donald Trump is regaining control of the United States, and public pressure is mounting domestically to address the rising cost of living. Meanwhile, the small opposition Democratic Party for the People refused to enter a formal coalition with the LDP but said it could offer support on individual policy issues.
DPP chief Yuichiro Tamaki declared on Friday that party members would not vote for Ishiba at a special parliamentary session on Monday.
Until now the LDP and Komeito have been able to push their policies through and they are no longer able to do that, they have to listen to the opposition parties.
Former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, head of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party, will also be among the candidates nominated for prime minister. If no candidate wins a majority in the primary, a run-off between the two main contenders will decide the winner.
Next year, Japan will hold elections for the less powerful upper house, where the ruling coalition’s slim majority could also be in jeopardy. Ishiba needs to restore public confidence in his administration, which has been rocked by a scandal over unaccounted-for donations to lawmakers.
The most pressing challenge he faces is putting together a supplementary budget for the fiscal year ending in March, under pressure from voters and opposition parties to increase social welfare spending and take measures to offset price increases.
Ishiba also has a number of international events, including the Group of 20 major economies summit in Brazil on 18 and 19 November. He is seeking to organise a stopover in the United States during the G20 summit to meet Trump.
Some Japanese officials fear that Trump may again lash out at Tokyo with trade measures and demand it increase spending to station US troops in the country. During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, those concerns were largely mitigated by the close ties between the president and then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
