Ishiba must find friends fast after Japan’s election failure – BNN Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba must quickly find additional support for his administration if he is to survive as leader after the first defeat of his ruling coalition since 2009.

Ishiba’s decision to call a snap election even before becoming prime minister proved to be a bad bet on a potential surge in popularity for a new leader. Instead, voters showed they remained unconvinced that simply installing a new face at the top of the party would mean a material reform of the party’s behavior after a slush fund scandal.

His miscalculation has him trying to shore up a weakened coalition. He will likely have to reach out to smaller opposition parties and chastised party members who have been stripped of official support for secretly lining their pockets at scandal-ridden fundraising events.

Still, Ishiba probably remains the LDP’s best chance to hang on to power, given his personality as a leader who can work with other parties rather than antagonize them, even if his longer-term future at the helm of the PDL it seems cloudy.

“The most likely outcome is to get an LDP-Komeito minority government with limited partner agreements, but unless the LDP can get a bigger number, even that is not guaranteed,” said Tobias Harris, founder of Japan Foresight LLC.

Given the number of permutations still in play, Harris didn’t rule out the possibility of Ishiba opting out.

The vote count shows the LDP and Komeito with a total of 214 seats and the rest with 246 seats, according to NHK. Japan’s main opposition Democratic Constitutional Party secured 146 seats, the station said.

Of the 10 disgraced party members and two who were expelled from the LDP, only four won their seats, according to NHK. That leaves difficult math for Ishiba if he hopes to rely solely on their support for the coalition. The Prime Minister needs to reach the magic number of 233 to ensure that he can win a parliamentary vote to remain as Prime Minister.

Given the strong public resentment of the scandal, it is unlikely that Ishiba will want to formalize his support in any way. But since many of them, including former trade ministers Koichi Hagiuda and Yasutoshi Nishimura, are party heavyweights, they are highly unlikely to risk sabotaging the formation of a PDL-led coalition, even if they have an ax to grind. grind with Ishiba.

1993 Precedent

The 1993 Lower House election provides a precedent for the PDL winning the most votes but failing to form a government because it was unable to garner enough support for the prime minister to continue.

A key difference is that the opposition parties were strongly united around the need for electoral reform at the time, a factor that allowed seven of them to form a coalition and oust the PDL from power for the first time since 1955.

After passing legislation to introduce an element of proportional representation into elections, the multi-party administration quickly fell apart and the LDP had a chance to return to power in an unlikely grand coalition.

The leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, Yoshihiko Noda, made it clear on Sunday that he is not interested in a grand coalition after this election. Noda said he would try to build an opposition coalition that could oust the PLD.

But in the battle of numbers, Ishiba may be able to form a coalition with fewer compromises than Noda.

Ishiba may first reach out to the People’s Democratic Party, whose increased number of seats would likely push him over the line to form a government. Yuichiro Tamaki, the leader of the DPP, said on Sunday that he would not negotiate with the LDP to join his coalition, but has already shown a willingness to cooperate on certain issues if policies align.

While refusing to join a PDL-led coalition may be a negotiating tactic on his part, Tamaki’s policy of expanding tax-free income could be a relatively easy lift for Ishiba if it meant staying in power.

Historically, it might make more sense for the DPP to link up with Noda’s CDP, given that both are remnants of the Democratic Party of Japan, the only party with any real experience of crushing the PLD.

The DPJ won a landslide in 2009, but quickly ran into trouble after over-promising to remove a US base from the southern island of Okinawa. His handling of the massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown disaster was also criticized as his administration fell into disarray, with Noda losing in 2012 as the DPJ’s third prime minister in three years.

The eventual split of the DPJ saw most members switch to the CDP, while more conservative members led by former finance ministry officials joined the DPP.

Noda’s problem is that the DPP ally won’t give him the numbers. He will have to contact the Innovation Party of Japan (Ishin), whose stronghold is in Osaka and whose policies are less progressive.

“Ishin will have to be part of any discussions. There are some big items that they might want in any discussions, such as support for the creation of Osaka-to,” Harris said, referring to the party’s long-standing goal of turning Osaka into a metropolitan entity without a parallel prefectural structure. “Someone’s going to have to lean in.”