Photo/Illutration Kenta Izumi, left, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, responds to a question about the results of the Upper House election in Tokyo on July 10. (The Asahi Shimbun)

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party won the July 10 Upper House election by a landslide, capturing 63 of the 125 contested seats and single-handedly securing a majority.

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan ended with six seats fewer than before the election. It fell behind Nippon Ishin (Japan Renovation Party) in the proportional representation portion.

The lackluster performance came despite the CDP’s efforts at self-restructuring under the new leadership of Kenta Izumi since its defeat in the Lower House election last autumn. The party could not stop its decline in strength.

At a news conference on July 11, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is the LDP president, said the victory has given him “the power to continue steering the administration stably.” He vowed to confront tough challenges by relying on his “power to listen” and “power to decide and act.”

If Kishida implied that he is now ready to switch gears from “safe driving” for winning the election to focusing more on implementing his policies, he must remember that he bears a heavier responsibility to the public and needs to explain himself more clearly.

While the CDP has managed to retain its largest opposition party status, it won only seven seats in the proportional representation portion, one fewer than Nippon Ishin. The number of ballots it collected in the segment was more than 1 million less than Nippon Ishin.

In single-seat constituencies, CDP incumbents were defeated by LDP newcomers in such prefectures as Niigata, Yamanashi and even Iwate, the home turf of veteran Ichiro Ozawa, although the opposition camp fielded only one candidate.

In urban multiple-seat constituencies, successful CDP candidates placed low on the winners’ rankings.

As the LDP, the dominant force in politics, has gained more strength, the role of the opposition grows in importance in keeping the administration strictly in check and ensuring that the public’s diverse views are reflected in national policies.

The CDP needs to face up to its election loss squarely and strive harder at steady self-rehabilitation.

The first task is to thoroughly analyze the causes of defeat.

Multiple opposition candidates competed in two-thirds of the 32 single-seat constituencies, which largely determine the general outcome of the election.

There is no question that this resulted in the splitting of votes critical of the government. But the CDP won in only two of the 11 districts where the opposition parties fielded their shared candidates.

The CDP needs to find out why it failed to attract more voters.

Aside from election collaboration and strategy issues, the party must examine the policies it advocated during the election campaign.

Amid the growing public unease over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the CDP promised “trustworthy security” as one of the three pillars of its “life security” platform. We wonder whether voters truly bought into this idea.

The party also pledged to lower the consumption tax rate and provide free education without going into the problem of funding. We wonder whether voters took these promises seriously.

Another urgent task, which has been pointed out repeatedly, is to pump up the party’s strength in local areas.

A key test will be unified local elections scheduled for next spring. Now is the time to actively start searching for promising candidates across the country.

In doing so, how about focusing on women and young people?

Izumi has appointed equal numbers of male and female party executives and saw to it that half the party’s candidates for the Upper House election were women. Actually, of the party’s 17 successful candidates, nine were women.

There are few women in the Diet, but even fewer in local assemblies. For the CDP, a focus on women would effect a solid change in politics from what is within its own power.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 12

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