The Diet, the Japanese Parliament, has decided to keep Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the head of the country at the opening of the new extraordinary parliamentary session. Last month, his Liberal Democratic Party lost, for the first time since 2012, the absolute majority it held in the Lower House of Parliament during early elections.
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The parties of the opposition failing to unitePrime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will lead a minority government with his ally, the small Komei party. To secure a majority in Parliament, he will have to work with the small People’s Democratic Party which says it is ready to offer him conditional support without entering into a formal coalition. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will have all the difficulty in the world to advance his economic and social reforms. Japan enters a period of political instability.
Shigeru Ishiba thus finds himself in a situation as precarious as that of the chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany. It took a second round in Parliament to elect him, something unheard of in thirty years. The People’s Democratic Party, which says it is ready to cooperate piecemeal with the Prime Minister’s party, did not vote for him.
Permanent threat of a motion of censure
The incompatibilities between the two parties are great. The People’s Democratic Party is demanding a reduction in VAT to restore purchasing power to the Japanese. The Conservative Party wants to increase taxes to contain a public debt which represents 250% of GDP. At any time, the small center-right party could pass a motion of no confidence and force Shigeru Ishiba to resign.
The Prime Minister also has many enemies within his party which has dominated Japanese political life for decades. They do not forgive him for having taken the risk of early elections ten days after coming to power. Shigeru Ishiba had underestimated the anger of the Japanese towards a party weakened, by a slush fund scandal, its links with the Unification Church or Moon sect.
Weakened, Shigeru Ishiba will have difficulty passing the slightest economic and social reform or resisting the demands of the American ally and protector with Donald Trump’s return to the White House.