Special elections for Japanese House of Councillors scheduled

Japan will host special parliamentary elections for the upper house seats of Shizuoka and Yamaguchi today.

New Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida—elected on October 4 following Yoshihide Suga’s resignation on September 3—will lead his center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and right-wing Komeito coalition government into today’s elections and the general election on October 31.

The LDP is expected to win comfortably in Yamaguchi—an LDP stronghold—and retain Shizuoka. This is due partly to the dilution of opposition candidates given the inability of the largest opposition party—the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan—to field a candidate in time.

This election marks the first major test of Kishida’s leadership abilities. Anything less than commanding wins in both seats will concern Kishida’s strategists ahead of next week’s general election, as that election will be the first national vote since the 12-year tenure of former-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ended. The polls still point to an LDP win, but a less than emphatic victory will likely weaken Kishida’s attempts to move the LDP’s political trajectory away from the fiscal stimulus and reforms of “Abenomics”—seen by critics as favoring corporate elites—towards more populist social investment to combat inequality.

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