On February 8, snap elections for the Lower House of the Diet were held. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, achieved its largest victory in postwar Japanese politics: the party single-handedly secured a supermajority, winning 316 of 465 seats.
Party Election Results and the New Balance of Power in the Diet
The LDP achieved a historic victory, winning 316 seats. This is the first time in postwar Japanese history that a single party has held so many seats in the Lower House. The LDP now holds a majority in Diet committees and can expedite debates on bills and advance legislation even if the Upper House (where the ruling coalition lacks a majority) opposes them.
By the midpoint of the election campaign, it was already clear that the LDP would win many seats. Despite the party’s low approval ratings at the start of the election, its President, Sanae Takaichi, was incredibly popular. Her slogans addressing economic problems, tightening foreign policy, and increasing Japan’s defense potential attracted citizens, especially young people, who increasingly supported the LDP and Takaichi. The question was whether the party would be able to surpass the 261-seat threshold needed to dominate committees and, together with the Ishin no Kai, secure a supermajority of 310 seats. However, the party’s results exceeded all expectations.
The Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), formed from the merger of the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and Komeito, suffered significant losses: while before the election the two parties had a combined 167 seats in the Lower House, after the election their number of seats dropped to just 49.
The new party had only a few weeks to develop a new identity, a brand under which they could attract a new voter base while not losing the old one. This brand became “centrism.” It was intended to signal to citizens, against the backdrop of the country’s rightward turn, that this party was not leftist, but also not sharply rightward, adhering to a middle path, striving to find compromises between various political forces, and not veering into radicalism. For Komeito, which still relies on the support of members of the Soka Gakkai religious movement, “centrism” is also an important signal, as it was already advocated as the Komeito ideal by Daisaku Ikeda, one of the most influential Soka Gakkai leaders.
However, the CRA had very little time to develop a new identity, and the ideas it promoted failed to resonate, resulting in disastrous results for the party.
Ishin no Kai, an Osaka-based party that entered into a quasi-coalition with the LDP, performed mediocrely, winning 36 seats, two fewer than in the previous elections. The party rejected electoral cooperation with the LDP; had the two groups reached an agreement, Ishin could have won more seats and expanded its influence beyond Osaka and the Kinki (Kansai) region. Now, it is unclear whether the LDP needs Ishin no Kai, whether the parties continue to cooperate, and in what format.
The Democratic Party For the People (DPP) won 28 seats. The DPP is a center-right party that agrees with the LDP on many points, but is fundamentally unwilling to form a coalition with any political force. It supports any party’s initiatives in the Diet if they share its views.
The DPP’s results were average; before the election, it had the same number of seats in the Lower House. While the DPP had significant influence during the minority government (October 27, 2024 – February 8, 2025) as a force with which the LDP had to negotiate, it has now lost that influence. At least in the Lower House, it still has 25 seats in the Upper House.
The Sanseito Party won 15 seats, increasing its presence in both houses of the Diet (in the Upper House it has 15 seats as well, but out of 248). The party likely could have won more seats had the LDP not adopted its slogans (in particular, introducing restrictions for foreigners) and attracted Sanseito voters.
Sanseito was almost caught up by the significantly less popular in the media Team Mirai, a party that advocates for investment in technologies such as AI, robotics, self-driving vehicles, and so on. This party won 11 seats.
The left-wing opposition, represented by the Reiwa Shinsengumi and the Japanese Communist Party, won 1 and 4 seats, respectively (in the last election, they won 16 and 12 seats), cementing the Japanese public’s loss of interest in left-liberal ideology and the rise of right-wing sentiment.
Post-Election Japanese Policy Scenarios
The LDP made the following promises for these elections: to increase Japan’s energy independence, specifically by building new nuclear power plants; to pursue a responsible and flexible fiscal policy aimed at reducing the national debt and building market confidence; to invest in regional development; to expedite the discussions on the temporary nullification of the food tax; to rely on the alliance with the United States in foreign policy, advance the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision (we wrote about it previously), promote the transfer of defense equipment and technology to its partners, and create an intelligence agency that will coordinate the activities of intelligence and counterintelligence units across various agencies; to amend the Constitution, specifically to clarify the legal status of the Self-Defense Forces.
The Prime Minister now bears enormous responsibility; the electorate expects much of her and could be greatly disappointed if she fails on any of the fronts outlined by the LDP. And problems are many: Japan’s difficult economic situation, where every investment or tax cut could lead to an increase in the country’s already enormous national debt; its complicated relationship with China, which could respond to Japan’s careless moves with new economic measures.
To amend the Constitution, the LDP needs the support of not only the Lower House but also the Upper House. Currently, the LDP’s position in the Upper House is precarious, and even with the support of other right-wing parties (which will have a difficult time agreeing on specific details on the Constitution revision among themselves), it will not be able to achieve a revision of this law before the 2028 elections. The LDP has promised much, so what are the chances that the electorate will not become disillusioned with the party within two years?
Therefore, the author of the article sees at least two scenarios. First, after the elections, Takaichi can act straightforwardly and begin actively implementing the most popular and sought-after promises. This will allow the Takaichi administration to maintain high approval ratings, even if less popular promises are not fulfilled.
The second scenario is that Sanae Takaichi will cautiously implement all promised measures, on the one hand, to satisfy all the groups within her electorate, demonstrating by election day that the party, if it hasn’t already fulfilled its promises, is at least taking steps to implement them; on the other, to avoid provoking other political players and worsening the country’s economic situation.
The PM would also do well to maintain at least one other political party as an ally, as betting on another miracle supermajority in the 2028 elections would be quite risky. Therefore, it’s possible that the LDP will continue to cooperate with the Ishin no Kai or will attempt to align itself with the DPP.
What to Watch Next
Information on the new distribution of seats in the Diet after the elections is extremely important, but it’s not the only data necessary for a thorough analysis of future policy. We’ll be able to better understand the intentions of the Sanae Takaichi administration when information on the distribution of seats in Diet committees is released. These committees are where bills are debated, and having party members there is important, as it determines which bills will be submitted to the Diet for debate, how they will be drafted, and how swiftly all this happens.
The LDP now has the power to appoint its own chairmen to all committees, and the majority of members of these bodies will also represent the party. However, who exactly is appointed to which committees, and whether the LDP makes any concessions to other parties in terms of appointments (with the aim of improving relations with them in the future), will all signal what issues will be prioritized and how the ruling party intends to interact with other political forces.
Daniil Romanenko, a Japanologist researcher from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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