Japan’s recent general election ended in a sweeping victory for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), effectively reaffirming Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s leadership. While the result brought political clarity, the low voter turnout raises a more uncomfortable question: how many citizens are truly participating in shaping the country’s future?
The confidence election for Prime Minister Takaichi concluded with an overwhelming result: the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s long-standing ruling party, secured 316 seats on its own—well over a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
In the United States, when voters choose a president—even one who quickly embarks on aggressive policies—there seems to be a shared resolve to accept that choice and live with it for four years. After this election, it feels as though we in Japan are now required to show a similar kind of resolve.
Watching the election coverage last night, it was hard not to feel sympathy for lawmakers from the former Constitutional Democratic Party. Many appeared to fall one after another, paying the price for strategic failures at the leadership level. When defeat reaches such a devastating scale, however, one cannot help but wonder whether the party itself can survive.
Still, a result is a result.
An effective “all-ruling-party” situation is not without its risks, but this is neither military rule nor dictatorship. In that sense, perhaps it can be accepted for what it is.
That said, the prospect of a return to the LDP’s old patterns—collusion, corruption, and money-driven politics—is deeply dispiriting. Even so, there is room to hope that Prime Minister Takaichi, with her relatively clean public image, can prevent the worst of these tendencies from resurfacing.
What lingers most strongly, however, is the voter turnout. It was reportedly around 55 percent.
Whether one votes or not is, of course, a matter of personal freedom. Perhaps the roughly 40 percent who stayed home feel satisfied with that choice.
They probably are.
But when the prime minister speaks of issues that divide the nation, it is worth remembering this: if those same citizens continue to stay away from public debate—and from future referendums—the country may end up moving in directions they never intended.
Or is it enough, after all, for the will of just 55 percent of the electorate to determine the nation’s course?
