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The defeat of candidate [[Hachiro Okonogi]] who is Suga's associate in the [[2021 Yokohama mayoral election|Yokohama mayoral election]] on 22 August added pressure on the prime minister and increased speculation on his political future.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Analysis: Risks of party revolt grow for Japan's PM Suga after local poll loss|url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/risks-party-revolt-grow-japans-pm-suga-after-local-poll-loss-2021-08-23/|date=2021-08-23|access-date=2021-08-23|publisher=Reuters|language=en}}</ref>
The defeat of candidate [[Hachiro Okonogi]] who is Suga's associate in the [[2021 Yokohama mayoral election|Yokohama mayoral election]] on 22 August added pressure on the prime minister and increased speculation on his political future.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Analysis: Risks of party revolt grow for Japan's PM Suga after local poll loss|url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/risks-party-revolt-grow-japans-pm-suga-after-local-poll-loss-2021-08-23/|date=2021-08-23|access-date=2021-08-23|publisher=Reuters|language=en}}</ref>


On 3 September, Suga announced that he would not run for re-election for the LDP leadership, paving the way for a new LDP leader and Prime Minister to take the party into the general election.<ref>{{cite web|date=3 September 2021|title='Suga decides not to run in LDP leadership race|url=https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210903_17/|access-date=3 September 2021|work=[[NHK World-Japan]]}}</ref>
On 3 September, Suga announced that he would not run for re-election for the LDP leadership citing low approval ratings, paving the way for a new LDP leader and Prime Minister to take the party into the general election.<ref>{{cite web|date=3 September 2021|title='Suga decides not to run in LDP leadership race|url=https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210903_17/|access-date=3 September 2021|work=[[NHK World-Japan]]}}</ref>


===Election date considerations===
===Election date considerations===

Revision as of 19:39, 3 September 2021

2021 Japanese general election
← 2017 On or before 28 November 2021[1]
All 465 seats to the House of Representatives of Japan
233 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
 
Leader TBD Yukio Edano Natsuo Yamaguchi
Party Liberal Democratic Constitutional Democratic Komeito
Leader since N/A 11 September 2020 [a] 8 September 2009
Leader's seat N/A Saitama-5th Not contesting
(Councillor)
Last election 284 seats, 33.28% 55 seats, 19.88% 29 seats, 12.51%
Current seats 277 110 29
Seats needed Steady Increase123 Increase204
 
Leader Kazuo Shii Ichirō Matsui
Toranosuke Katayama 		Yuichiro Tamaki
Party Communist Ishin Democratic Party for the People
Leader since 24 November 2000 2 November 2015 18 December 2020
Leader's seat Minami-Kantō PR Not contesting
(Mayor of Osaka) 		Kagawa-2nd
Last election 12 seats, 7.90% 11 seats, 6.07% New party[b]
Current seats 12 10 7
Seats needed Increase221 Increase223 Increase226
 
Leader Mizuho Fukushima Takashi Tachibana
Party Social Democratic The Party to Protect the People from NHK
Leader since 22 February 2020 17 June 2013
Leader's seat Not contesting
(Councillor) 		Not contesting
(Not in office)
Last election 2 seats, 1.69% 0 seats, 0.00%
Current seats 1 1
Seats needed Increase232 Increase232
Parliamentary districts not including proportional blocks
Incumbent Prime Minister

Yoshihide Suga
Liberal Democratic



The 49th general election of members of the House of Representatives (Japanese: 第49回衆議院議員総選挙, Hepburn: dai-yonjūkyūkai Shūgiin giin sōsenkyo) is scheduled on or before 28 November 2021,[2] as required by the Constitution of Japan. Voting will take place in all Representatives constituencies of Japan including proportional blocks, in order to appoint Members of Diet to seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet of Japan. As the cabinet has to resign after a general House of Representatives election in the first post-election Diet session (Constitution, Article 70), the lower house election will also lead to a new designation election of the Prime Minister in the Diet, and the appointment of a new cabinet (even if the same ministers are re-appointed).

Election date

Under the post-occupation interpretation of Article 7 of the Constitution, the cabinet may instruct the Emperor to dissolve the House of Representatives before the end of term at will. Elections must be held within 40 days after dissolution.[3]

The only time in postwar history that the House of Representatives was not dissolved before the end of its term was in 1976. If the House of Representatives completes a full four-year term, the election must be held within 30 days before that.[4]

With the sudden resignation of Shinzo Abe from his position as prime minister due to health issues, speculation rose of the possibility that a snap election would be held before the end of the full term, but this did not happen.[5]

Background

Following the 2017 general election, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) continued to find itself in a dominant position as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led the party to a third consecutive victory, the first for a single Prime Minister since 1953.[6] While the LDP's strong showing seemed to suggest momentum for Abe's long-held goal of revising the anti-war Article 9 of the Constitution, the prospect for revision was thwarted due to procedural obstacles in the Diet from opposition parties and the ruling coalition losing its two-thirds majority in the House of Councillors in the 2019 election.[7]

Resignation of Shinzo Abe and election of Yoshihide Suga

Abe's approval ratings suffered in 2018 as several favoritism scandals dominated media coverage, however he was still successfully re-elected as President of the LDP in September 2018 and became the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history on 19 November 2019 and the longest-serving consecutive Prime Minister on 24 August 2020.[8] However, Abe shocked observers when he announced on 28 August 2020 that he would resign the premiership due to a sudden resurgence of his ulcerative colitis. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was elected the next President of the LDP in September 2020 and succeeded Abe as Prime Minister days later.

Opposition party consolidation

Meanwhile, Japan's many opposition parties continued to find themselves fractured and disunited. The Constitutional Democratic Party, seeking to establish itself as the primary centre-left opposition party against the LDP, merged with majorities of the Democratic Party for the People and the Social Democratic Party as well as several independent lawmakers in late 2020, officially re-organizing as a new party while retaining the same name and Yukio Edano as leader.[9] Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike's national party Kibō no Tō was dissolved in May 2018 after it merged with the Democratic Party to form the Democratic Party for the People, while Koike herself was re-elected in a landslide in 2020 as an independent. The period since 2017 has also seen the creation of Reiwa Shinsengumi, a left-wing populist party created by former actor Taro Yamamoto, whose central policy position is abolition of the consumption tax.[10]

Suga's popularity falls and cabinet failure

While starting out his time in office relatively popular, Prime Minister Suga's approval ratings have gradually worsened over time due to public dissatisfaction with his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including Japan's slow vaccine rollout compared to the rest of the developed world, and his management of the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The LDP lost three Diet by-elections in April 2021 and also failed to win an outright majority in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election in July despite winning the most seats, losses described by analysts as poor performances attributable to Suga's low approval ratings.[11]

Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and COVID-19 surge

When the Olympics were eventually held in July to August 2021, there was a positive shift in public sentiment towards the games as Japanese athletes secured a record haul of Olympic medals (in contrast to the run up to the Games, when there was widespread hostility with the decision to go ahead with the event amidst a pandemic).[12] However, this did not translate into an upturn in Suga's personal ratings as the event coincided with a state of emergency while COVID-19 cases in Japan continued to surge from the Delta variant.[13]By the time the Tokyo Olympics ended, there were more than a million cases in the country. In a Asahi Shimbun poll taken at the end of the Olympics, the Cabinet's approval ratings fell to an all time low of 28%, even though 56% of the public agreed that hosting the Olympics was the right decision.[14] This signified that the public was more concerned over the government's inability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of Japan's Olympics performance.[15] As a result, the government's pandemic response is likely to be an election issue.

Although Suga claimed there is no evidence that the Olympics contributed to a surge in daily cases in Tokyo and other parts of Japan, experts, including the government's chief medical adviser believe the Games undermined official messaging on virus rules and encouraged people to become complacent.[16]

2021 LDP leadership election and resignation of Yoshihide Suga

Main article: 2021 Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) leadership election

Following the Olympics, speculation rose that several LDP lawmakers, such as former ministers Sanae Takaichi,[17] Seiko Noda,[18] 2020 leadership candidate Fumio Kishida[19] and party policy chief Hakubun Shimomura[20] were preparing to run for the LDP leadership against Suga when his term as party president ends in September, in the lead up to the election.[21]

The defeat of candidate Hachiro Okonogi who is Suga's associate in the Yokohama mayoral election on 22 August added pressure on the prime minister and increased speculation on his political future.[22]

On 3 September, Suga announced that he would not run for re-election for the LDP leadership citing low approval ratings, paving the way for a new LDP leader and Prime Minister to take the party into the general election.[23]

Election date considerations

The government may consider a plan to hold a general election on 17 October, several days before the expiration of the four-year term for House of Representatives members, government sources said on 30 August.[24]

Current composition

Composition of the House of Representatives of Japan
(as of August 28, 2024, before 214th National Diet)[25]
elected by 2021 Japanese general election (term: 31 October 2021 – 30 October 2025 or earlier dissolution)
In-House Groups
[innai] kaiha 		Parties Seats
by parties 		Seats
Government 289
Liberal Democratic Party
Jiyūminshutō / Mushozoku no Kai
Liberal Democratic Party / Association of independents 		Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 256 257
Independent 1
Komeito
Kōmeitō		 Komeito 32 32
Opposition 168
The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan
Rikken Minshutō・Mushozoku
Constitutional Democratic Party / Independents 		Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) 97 99
Social Democratic Party (SDP) 1
Independent 1
Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and Free Education For All
Nippon Ishin no Kai / Kyōiku mushō-ka o jitsugen suru Kai
Nippon Ishin no Kai / Free Education For All 		Nippon Ishin no Kai 41 45
Free Education For All 4
Japanese Communist Party
Nihon Kyōsantō		 Japanese Communist Party (JCP) 10 10
Democratic Party for the People
Kokumin Minshutō・Mushozoku Club
Democratic Party for the People / Independent Club		 Democratic Party For the People (DPFP) 7 7
Yūshi no Kai
Yūshi no Kai		 Independent 4 4
Reiwa Shinsengumi
Reiwa Shinsengumi		 Reiwa Shinsengumi 3 3
Independents (government or opposition) 7
Independents (not member of a caucus)
Mushozoku 		LDP (Speaker: Fukushiro Nukaga) 1
CDP (Vice-Speaker: Banri Kaieda) 1
Independents (not member of a party) 5
Total 464
Vacant
Ketsuin 		proportional seat: one LDP list seat from Hokkaidō (scheduled runner-up replacement: Kazuo Maeda)[26] 1

Opinion polls

This section is an excerpt from Opinion polling for the next Japanese general election § Graphical summary.[edit]
LOESS curve of the party identification polling for the next Japanese general election with a 7-day average

Results

Main article: Results of the 2021 Japanese general election

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The current Constitutional Democratic Party is a new party founded in September 2020 following a merger between the CDP, a majority of the former Democratic Party for the People and some independent Diet members. The new party voted to retain the CDP name as well as Edano as leader.
  2. ^ The Democratic Party merged with Kibō no Tō in May 2018, forming the Democratic Party for the People. The majority of the DPFP later merged with the Constitutional Democratic Party in September 2020, however 14 members refused to merge and instead formed a new party retaining the DPFP name and branding.

References

  1. ^ "Japan PM Suga unlikely to call election in early Sept., late Nov. possible". Kyodo News. 17 August 2021.
  2. ^ "Japan PM Suga unlikely to call election in early Sept., late Nov. possible". Kyodo News. 17 August 2021.
  3. ^ "Japan PM Suga unlikely to call election in early Sept., late Nov. possible". Kyodo News. 17 August 2021.
  4. ^ "公職選挙法". Archived from the original on 29 July 2016. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  5. ^ "Ailing Abe quits as Japan PM as COVID-19 slams economy, key goals unmet". Reuters. 28 August 2020.
  6. ^ Rich, M. (22 November 2017). "Japan Election Vindicates Shinzo Abe as His Party Wins Big". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  7. ^ Johnston, Eric (22 July 2019). "Abe's push to amend Japan's Constitution faces uncertain future after Upper House vote". The Japan Times. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  8. ^ Harding, Robin (20 November 2019). "Shinzo Abe becomes Japan's longest serving prime minister". Financial Times. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  9. ^ Johnston, Eric (10 September 2020). "Yukio Edano elected chief of new CDP, Japan's top opposition party". The Japan Times. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  10. ^ Minami, Daisuke (2 August 2019). "Is populism finally coming to Japan?". The Japan Times. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  11. ^ "LDP, Komeito fail to win majority in Tokyo assembly". The Mainichi Shimbun. 5 July 2021. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  12. ^ "Japan ends Tokyo 2020 with record medal haul". Reuters. 8 August 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  13. ^ "FOCUS: Japan PM Suga losing out due to poor COVID response as Olympics end". Kyodo News. 9 August 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  14. ^ "Japan PM Suga's support slides to record low as Olympic Games close: survey". The Business Times.
  15. ^ "FOCUS: Steps that made Tokyo Olympics possible also left public disconnected". Kyodo News. 9 August 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  16. ^ "Olympic feelgood factor evaporates as fearful Tokyo awaits Paralympics". The Guardian. 21 August 2021. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  17. ^ "Suga's easy re-election hopes clouded by potential opponents". Kyodo News. 8 August 2021. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  18. ^ "Analysis: Risks of party revolt grow for Japan's PM Suga after local poll loss". Reuters. 23 August 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  19. ^ "Analysis: Risks of party revolt grow for Japan's PM Suga after local poll loss". Reuters. 23 August 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  20. ^ "Shimomura Ready to Challenge Suga in LDP Leadership Race". nippon.com. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
  21. ^ "Suga's easy re-election hopes clouded by potential opponents". Kyodo News. 8 August 2021. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  22. ^ "Analysis: Risks of party revolt grow for Japan's PM Suga after local poll loss". Reuters. 23 August 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  23. ^ "'Suga decides not to run in LDP leadership race". NHK World-Japan. 3 September 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  24. ^ "Japan may opt for Oct. 17 election without dissolving lower house". Kyodo News. 31 August 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  25. ^ "会派名及び会派別所属議員数". 衆議院　The House of Representatives, Japan. Retrieved 24 April 2024. (Japanese), retrieved August 30, 2024.
  26. ^ Hokkaidō Shimbun, August 29, 2024: 前田道議、繰り上げ当選辞退を正式表明　堀井衆院議員辞職で, retrieved August 30, 2024.
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