Photo/Illutration Ome Mayor Keiichi Hamanaka, left, stands by after losing his re-election bid on Nov. 12, while Shinji Inoue, a Lower House member from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaks to reporters. (Yuka Honda)

The low support ratings for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet are translating into local election losses by candidates backed by his Liberal Democratic Party.

The losing trend has led to internal grumblings that the ruling party may need a new leader to stay in power.

“If we suffer more losses at the local level, voices might be raised that a Lower House election cannot be fought with Kishida at the helm,” a former LDP Cabinet minister said.

The Fukushima prefectural assembly election was held Nov. 12, and the LDP lost two seats from its pre-election strength, including one held by veteran member in the 10-seat urban Iwaki constituency.

In three single-seat districts in rural areas of Fukushima, the LDP candidate was defeated in one-on-one battles.

In the Miyagi prefectural assembly election held in October, the LDP lost four seats from its pre-election strength.

The LDP has also struggled in the Tokyo area.

The incumbent mayor of Ome on the western outskirts of the capital received endorsements from the LDP and junior coalition partner Komeito for the Nov. 12 election.

But he was defeated by a candidate backed by the opposition Democratic Party for the People and the local party Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First).

The winner, Toshiaki Osemachi, 48, told reporters after the election was called his way: “I entered the election with the desire to change the sense of Ome heading nowhere. As I campaigned in various parts of the city, the response I received from voters who held similar feelings was much stronger than I expected.”

The incumbent, Keiichi Hamanaka, 71, was seeking a third term. When asked by reporters if the low support ratings for the Kishida Cabinet affected the mayoral election, Hamanaka said he felt his own age was a bigger factor.

Hamanaka lost by close to 9,000 votes even though Koichi Hagiuda, the LDP policy chief and head of the LDP’s Tokyo chapter, and other party bigwigs campaigned on his behalf.

While Komeito members of the Ome municipal assembly also campaigned with Hamanaka, Osemachi was helped by classmates from elementary and junior high school.

The LDP-endorsed candidate in the mayoral election in nearby Tachikawa also went down to defeat in September.

An LDP-backed candidate also lost in a by-election held in October for two seats in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly representing Tachikawa.

Regarding the Ome mayoral election defeat, a high-ranking LDP official said: “The voters did not appear willing to listen to what we had to say about specific policy measures because of their general belief that the Kishida administration could not be trusted. In the latter half of the campaign, we stop mentioning ‘LDP’ when seeking out votes.”

A high-ranking official of the LDP’s Tokyo chapter who once served as a Cabinet minister said the lower support ratings for the Kishida Cabinet not only pushed LDP voters away from LDP candidates but also prevented such candidates from gaining the support of unaffiliated voters.

“The situation is similar to the final days of the Suga administration,” the official said.

Yoshihide Suga, Kishida’s predecessor, stepped down as prime minister in September 2021 in part because a candidate he backed lost in the Yokohama mayoral election. Suga represents a Lower House district in the city south of Tokyo.

(This article was written by Shoko Rikimaru, Harufumi Mori, Yoshitaka Isobe and Yuka Honda.)

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