Victory Assured

The leading parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, agreed on the schedule for the election of the House of Councillors. The election will publicly be announced on July 4^th and voted on 21^st of the month. LDP seems to be winning, as a theoretical result of debilitation of other parties. Following the sweeping victory in the general election of the House of Representatives last winter, it is very likely for LDP and Komeito to get simple majority in the coming showdown, providing them a freehand for control in policy choices.

The Public Officers Election Act determines that the election of the House of Councillors should be held within thirty days before the term of its lawmakers expires. And if those thirty days overlaps with the session of the Diet or with twenty-three days after the session, the election has to be held within the period from twenty-four to thirty days after the end of the session. One half of lawmakers in the House of Coucillors will meet their term expiration on 28^th of July. The current session of the Diet will end on 26^th of June. Since leading parties agreed on not extending the Diet session, and with the practice of having every election on Sunday, the voting day of the election dropped on July 21^st.

Parties are going to compete over 121 seats, a half of all seats in the House, which consist of 48 seats for proportional representative and 73 seats elected from 47 districts. According to the polls and previous examples, it is likely for LDP to get around 18 seats in proportional representative, and 45 in district election. Adding to likely 11 seats for Komeito, the LDP-Komeito coalition can take 74 seats, 11 more than necessary seats for securing simple majority in the House.

In this estimate, the Democratic Party of Japan may get 25 seats, helped by organizational activities of labor union. Your Party is likely to get 8, while ailing Restoration Party of Japan limited to 5. Other parties will share the rest of the seats. Please note that all above are nothing more than writer’s personal guess.

Although LDP can secure simple majority in both Houses after the election, getting  two-thirds majority, necessary for the proposal of constitution amendment, in each House is unlikely. That will be still insufficient, even if it gets supports from Your Party and Restoration Party.

So, LDP will rather focus on conventional issues such as raising consumption tax rate, joining the negotiation over Trans-Pacific Partnership, or restoring relationship with China and South Korea. If PM Abe is going to insist on right wing issues, the politics in Japan will again go down into turmoil.