Japan, a vote in the name of continuity

• Japan, elections: Prime Minister Kishida announces victory

• Japan: Kishida appointed premier, list of ministers and early voting announced

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01 November 2021 The results of the elections in Japan give a signal of continuity in the politics of the Rising Sun.

"The voters have shown that they want a stable government," said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the aftermath of the vote, less than a month into his term of office and the first national test of the Covid era.

The ruling coalition, formed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Buddhist-inspired movement Komeitō, won a total of 293 seats. In the early stages of the poll it was feared that the LDP needed the government ally to maintain an absolute majority of the 465 seats in the House of Representatives, but the following hours confirmed to the party that has dominated the Japanese political scene since the war a comfortable victory. The dozen fewer seats did not prevent the LDP from reaching the 261-seat threshold alone, which allows control of all parliamentary committees. The decline in consensus was expected on the eve of the negative opinion of public opinion on the government's response to the pandemic,both as regards the initial slowness of the vaccination campaign and the economic consequences of Covid. In particular, the target of criticism had been former premier Yoshihide Suga.

The vote was also characterized by a low turnout, 55.8% of those entitled, three points more than the negative post-war record recorded in 2014. A factor, the latter, which may have been an advantage for the 'LDP, not very popular with young people, less interested in politics. In the next legislature, scheduled for November 10 with an extraordinary session of the Diet that will renew the mandate of prime minister in Kishida, the governing coalition will face a split opposition, which sees the two main parties in very different positions and returning from a result diametrically opposite electoral. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), the first opposition party born from a merger of the Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party,it has lost a dozen MPs and now has 96, while the Innovation Party, a center-right formation rooted in the Osaka region, has seen its team grow from 11 to 41 MPs.

On the eve of the vote, Kishida promised rapid interventions to restart the country and face international challenges, in an economic context marked by Covid, with the slowdown in exports and borders still closed to tourists, and a social context burdened by the demographic crisis. and the aging of the population. Removed the specter of "revolving doors", that is, a short-term mandate along the lines of that of Suga, the premier presented to the voters a program with these main points: 

COVID - Making drugs for treatment available by the end of the year of the infection and pass laws that allow the government to more effectively implement restrictions on the movement of citizens in the event of a lockdown. 

ECONOMY - Create a virtuous circle ("a new capitalism") that combines growth and redistribution of wealth, relaunching the consumption of the middle class and overcoming the economic recipes of former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe (the so-called "Abenomics"). An extra budget with stimulus measures worth 270 billion dollars will be approved by the end of the year.

SECURITY - Review defense policy in response to the threat from China and North Korea, increasing the budget for military spending. 

CLIMATE AND ENERGY - Reactivate nuclear power plants deemed safe and promote renewable energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of "net zero emissions" by 2050 is confirmed. 

CIVIL RIGHTS - No to same-sex marriages, caution on the decision to allow married couples to keep their surnames of origin (in Japan the law requires the wife to abandon her surname to assume that of her husband).