A head-on political clash between the ruling and opposition camps left the Liberal Democratic Party with a win one, lose one tally in two key by-elections held Oct. 22. And even then, it only managed to scrape by.

They were the first national polls since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his Cabinet and LDP executive lineup in September. The outcome reflected voter dissatisfaction over Kishida’s policy agenda and governance.

Both seats were in LDP hands at the time. In the Upper House’s Tokushima and Kochi electoral district, the opposition-backed independent candidate, a well-known political figure with two terms in the upper chamber and one term in the Lower House under his belt, defeated the LDP-supported first-time candidate by a wide margin.

In the Lower House’s Nagasaki No. 4 district, the LDP newcomer narrowly defeated the candidate of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), who had switched from the Kyushu proportional representation block.

Even in the “mourning election” in Nagasaki, which became vacant with the death of the LDP incumbent and for which the party was projected to reap loads of sympathy votes, the LDP only escaped losing by a thin margin.

Kishida traveled to the prefectures himself and campaigned on behalf of the LDP candidates by emphasizing his economic policy measures and efforts to support childcare and families with young children. Two days before the elections, he ordered the ruling coalition to consider a temporary cut in income tax to return a windfall in tax revenues to the taxpaying public. However, these efforts failed to bolster public support for his government or the party.

The results also reflected the circumstances specific to each region and candidate. We urge Kishida to humbly accept the outcome and use this opportunity to take an honest look at his own political posture and performance.

In recent months, Kishida seems to have put his own political interests ahead of all else. He has alluded to dissolving the Lower House for a snap election in a thinly veiled political maneuver to secure his re-election as LDP president next fall, and has proposed cash handouts to the public to bolster his popularity.

Kishida was under intense pressure to win the two by-elections as it would have given him the political capital to dissolve the Lower House at a time of his choosing.

But now he really needs to address urgent policy challenges. They include making an effective policy response to a public clamor for action to offset the rising cost of foodstuffs and commodities, sorting out confusion surrounding the My Number personal identification system and providing relief to victims of dubious fund-raising activities by the religious group formerly called the Unification Church.

Kishida needs to divert his attention to these challenges and understand that he cannot hope to regain the trust of the people other than through steady, if low-key, progress on these issues.

The LDP rookie candidate who came close to being beaten by the opposition candidate in Nagasaki is a third-generation politician and heir to a political dynasty.

While there was no surge in public criticism of “hereditary succession,” the critical eye that voters are showing toward hereditary politicians should not be taken lightly.

The use of the Self-Defense Forces for any political purposes, as Defense Minister Minoru Kihara did in his campaign speech for the LDP candidate in Nagasaki, should never be repeated.

Despite winning one seat, the opposition bloc is still in a political bind. Its only hope will be to field unified candidates against those backed by the dominant ruling coalition in the next Lower House election. It will not be easy for the parties, given their widely different political stripes, to forge an alliance as they did in the by-elections. 

The candidate officially supported by the CDP lost the Nagasaki seat to the LDP. The opposition victory in the Tokushima-Kochi district was won by making the candidate’s association with the CDP invisible and stressing his independent status.

The main opposition party still has a long way to go in its efforts to regain political relevance, and party chief Kenta Izumi will face more tests of his leadership in the coming months.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 23