Japan: even if he won the senatorial elections, the Fumio Kishida course risks being strewn with pitfalls
Fumio Kishida at the headquarters of his party, the LDP, in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, July 10, 2022. AP - Toru Hanai
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
In Japan on Sunday evening July 10, just two days after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the senatorial elections were won hands down by the ruling coalition, led by the head of government Fumio Kishida.
The national trauma caused by this attack will therefore not be coupled with a political crisis.
However, the hardest part is undoubtedly yet to come for the Japanese executive.
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Fumio Kishida breathes.
He escaped the worst, a sanction vote.
Voters did not hold it against him for the undeniable flaws in
Shinzo Abe
's protection system on Friday, July 8, reports our correspondent at Tkoyo,
Bruno Duval
.
As no more national elections are scheduled before 2025, he can hope to stay in power for three years.
This is not so common in a country which, before the Abe era, changed its prime minister almost every year.
But the journey of the head of government is likely to be strewn with pitfalls.
► To read also:
Senate elections in Japan: the announced victory of the PLD is confirmed
A dissatisfied opinion
The opposition and the press demand accountability for the circumstances of Shinzo Abe's assassination.
The executive therefore risks not escaping a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the subject.
He won Sunday's election, but polls show the public is very unhappy with his handling of soaring prices.
The seventh wave of the epidemic has started in the archipelago.
However, one in three Japanese has still not received the booster dose of vaccine.
To make matters worse, the disappearance of Shinzo Abe deprives the ruling party of a tutelary figure.
► To read also:
Shinzo Abe: the most famous of the Prime Ministers of Japan assassinated
The cohesion of the LDP
It therefore risks being scattered over rival baronies, which would make it unmanageable.
“
The main political rivalries in Japan are expressed within the party that is in power
,” explained
Valérie Niquet,
Japan specialist on our antenna.
But Shinzo Abe had “
remained at the head of one of the most important factions of the Liberal Democratic Party...
and (played) a very important role in the internal political balances of the LDP and in the future orientations of the Japanese government.
If necessary, that would make the task of the head of government much more difficult.
♦ What about the draft revision of the Constitution?
The Liberal Democratic Party is mainly campaigning on two points in the draft revision of the Constitution, explains Arnaud Grivaud, lecturer at the University of Paris-Cité and specialist in Japanese politics.
“
The first is to very clearly include the Self-Defense Forces in the Constitution …,
he analyzes at the microphone of
Marie Normand,
from the international service of RFI.
C
ertain political forces consider that the Self-Defense Forces are unconstitutional, whereas this is a position that has become extremely minority today.
The desire to also introduce an exceptional regime in the Constitution, because Japan does not have an exceptional regime, unlike France, and this obviously had certain consequences during the Covid crisis.
In order to be able to modify the Constitution, the two Chambers must first vote by two-thirds. These two thirds were not held by the political forces rather favorable to a constitutional revision so far. But there, by adding the four political forces, we arrive at around 170, 171 seats, but you need to have 156 to have two-thirds. The current Prime Minister is also supported in this project.
»
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Fumio Kishida
Japan