On April 9 and 23 of this year, that is, in two rounds, elections were held in Japan, which in the general electoral process of the country can be called “intermediate-local”. While the “main” element of it is the general parliamentary elections.
These latter may be held at a certain interval or extraordinary. Because the Prime Minister of the country has the right to dissolve the lower house of parliament ahead of time and set a date for the election of a new parliament. As a matter of fact, the question of whether acting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will exercise this right was perhaps the main intrigue of the just held elections.
Usually, the head of the Japanese Cabinet resorts to such an opportunity when the public needs to demonstrate that he enjoys the popularity needed to hold certain events of national importance that are the subject of heated debate. In the context of “democratic” discourse, what better way to demonstrate this popularity than through the positive results of the electoral process.
In the fall of 2017, a similar political technique was used by the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in whose government the same Fumio Kishida was head of the Foreign Ministry for four years. Most of the national problems that Shinzo Abe tried to solve through measures that were not very popular at the time were inherited by his predecessor. Abe, the current prime minister inherited.
Of these, the list of the main ones remains the question of the fate of the “anti-war” 9th article of the current Japanese constitution, without any changes in force since 1947 For more than two decades, this issue has been the subject of the most acute public controversy. In a speech to the leading functionaries of the ruling (with rare interruptions almost throughout the post-war period) Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which was devoted to the results of the last elections, Fumio Kishida announced his intention to revise the content of this article before the end of his term at the head of the LDP. Recall that the specified period began in the fall of 2021 and will end in the fall, but in 2024.
At the same time, Fumio Kishida referred to the fact of “our victory in two national elections” since he headed the party. Of course, the last general elections to the lower and upper houses of parliament, which took place less than a year apart, were meant.
The current “intermediate-local” elections, which also ended quite successfully for the LDP, were certainly seen by the party leadership as a necessary precondition for launching the (possible) process of demonstrating possession of that very “vote of confidence”. First and foremost, by its current party leader. The mentioned “process” itself may consist, let us repeat, in premature dissolution of the lower chamber of parliament and organization of elections of its new composition. And the (very likely) next electoral victory on a national scale should prove the popularity of the current “party and government” in Japan among the Japanese people in general.
However, there are still mixed signals from the current prime minister himself as to whether he will take advantage of the positive results of the just-concluded elections to launch the national electoral process ahead of schedule.
In the meantime, the current government would do well to acquire such a certificate today, without waiting for the “calendar” deadline (scheduled for autumn 2025) for the reelection of the lower house of parliament. Again, taking into account the severity of the set of problems on the country’s agenda.
Of these, the most dangerous, especially from a long-term perspective, is the problem of depopulation. It emerged long ago, but for a long time it was “swept under the carpet,” focusing public attention on the “growing North Korean-Chinese-Russian threat” and the need to parry the latter in the first place.
That is, in modern Japan, as, indeed, everywhere and always, foreign policy ambitions and domestic political problems turn out to be in relation to each other in one way or another in antagonistic positions. In this regard, by the way, almost an exemplary example is demonstrated by the United States, that is, the current key ally of Japan.
With regard to the latter, it is no longer possible to react in a “pretentious-imitative” style to annual reports of a continuous (year after year) reduction in the birth rate, as well as to forecasts of a 20% reduction in the population by the middle of this century. Speaking in parliament in January of this year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida designated it as one of the priorities and urgents.
The very problem of declining interest in procreation, which in principle has an extremely complex and multifactorial appearance, is more or less characteristic of the population of almost all countries of the “civilized world”, of which present-day Japan is an integral element.
The embodiment of the counterproductive (in the literal sense) of its basic concepts is the spread of the “new normal”. Which, generally speaking, fully deserves to be assessed as an unprecedented crime against humanity, and, consequently, the subject of a special international criminal process. In (potential) management, which will certainly turn out to be not only the fact of focusing on “values below the belt”, but also a number of other equally strange trends. For example, equalizing the rights of parents and infants, people in general and animals.
By the way, the same Fumio Kishida is trying to designate a kind of struggle with the arrival of the “new normal” in his country. But here there is a clear inequality of power, as the plenipotentiary of the “big brother” in Tokyo has already made it clear to the Japanese prime minister. Either Fumio Kishida will have to listen behind the scenes of the upcoming G7 summit from the president of the latter himself. Who somehow manages to position himself as an ardent Catholic and, at the same time, almost a public world leader in spreading the “new normal”.
Among the main reasons for the decline in the desire of Japanese youth to procreate, there is an increase in pessimism about their own future. Which, in particular, manifests itself in the form of an increase in suicide already at the level of the age groups of high school classes. This pessimism is caused, among other things, by uncertainty with the prospect of material support for potential families. Which is already directly and contradictorily related to another of the above-mentioned main problems of the current Japanese government, which is in the sphere of national security.
We are talking about the ambiguity with the financial and material support of a sharp increase in the importance of this particular area. Its format will now be determined by the National Security Strategy adopted at the end of last year by the ruling party bloc new edition, designed for the next ten years. In accordance with its main provisions, in the next five years it is planned to double defence spending, that is, to bring it to 2% of national GDP
This, in general terms, is a set of issues and problems in the solution of which the current Japanese government needs at least indirect support from the population of the country. This is manifested in the course of the electoral process, one of the stages of which was the aforementioned “midterm-local” elections. Their subject this time were the posts of governors in nine prefectures (a total of 47 in the administrative division of Japan), deputy positions of local assemblies in 41 prefectures, as well as mayors of 17 major cities. In addition, elections were held for deputies to both houses of parliament for five vacant seats.
The main results of this electoral stage are remarkable and contradictory. First of all, the leading party of the ruling bloc, the LDP, reaffirmed its longstanding leadership in contemporary Japanese politics. Its “junior partner” (the Buddhist) Komeito Party suffered a serious defeat. It was just as unsuccessful in the elections being debated as the LDP’s main opponent, the Constitutional Democratic Party, the successor to the Democratic Party that was in power in 2008-2012.
Against this background, the success of Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), which clearly transcends the regional party format that emerged in the middle of the last decade mainly through the efforts of Tōru Hashimoto, then mayor of the second most important (after Tokyo) urban conglomerate, Osaka, attracts attention. In the increasingly conventional “right-left” gradation of parties, not only in Japan, but all over the world, Nippon Ishin, like the LDP, is commonly referred to as a “right-wing” party.
This means that we shouldn’t expect any significant trends in Japan’s domestic and foreign policy, i.e., in a country that is becoming increasingly important on the international stage.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
