Photo/Illutration People listen to a candidate’s speech in Tokyo on Oct. 15. (Koichiro Yoshida)

Major opposition parties are battling each other for votes in 80 percent of electoral districts nationwide, creating a situation that favors the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the Oct. 27 Lower House election.

Unlike the trend in previous elections, the opposition parties are not rallying behind a unified candidate in 239 of the 289 electoral districts nationwide, meaning that the ballots of voters critical of the ruling party will be dispersed.

Unified opposition candidates are contenders in only six of the 46 electoral districts where LDP politicians implicated in the party’s funding scandal are seeking re-election.

The ruling and opposition parties are vying for 465 seats in the Lower House—289 in single-seat constituencies and 176 in the proportional representation portion.

Before the official campaign started on Oct. 15, the ruling coalition held 279 seats—247 for the LDP and 32 for junior coalition partner Komeito.

If the LDP and Komeito lose 47 seats in the election, the ruling parties will no longer have a majority.

The 239 electoral districts where more than one opposition candidate is running represent an increase of 95 from the last Lower House election in 2021.

For the Oct. 27 election, the ruling and opposition parties are essentially locked in one-on-one battles in 44 districts, a decrease of 101 from 2021.

In the previous Lower House election, five major opposition parties--the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the Japanese Communist Party, the Democratic Party for the People, Reiwa Shinsengumi, the Social Democratic Party--were able to unify candidates in their joint battle against the ruling coalition.

A senior official of the LDP Election Strategy Headquarters had been wary of such a strategy this time around, saying, “A single opposition candidate would be the hardest thing to beat.”

In the 2021 election, LDP-Komeito candidates won in 99, or 68 percent, of the 145 electoral districts where the five opposition parties fielded a single candidate.

In the 72 electoral districts where opposition candidates competed against each other, 59 LDP-Komeito candidates claimed the seats for a winning rate of 82 percent, 14 percentage points higher than in the opposition-unified districts.

One likely reason for the lack of cooperation among the opposition parties is that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called the election immediately after taking office, giving the opposition little time to coordinate.

Of the 46 LDP candidates involved in the funding scandal who are seeking re-election, the party withheld its official endorsement for 12 as a disciplinary measure.

The remaining 34 are officially endorsed by the LDP, but they are not named on the party’s list for proportional representation, meaning they must win their single-seat districts for a place in the Diet.

Yoshihiko Noda, president of the CDP, had stressed the need to unify opposition party candidates in these electoral districts to drive out the scandal-hit LDP politicians.

However, six opposition parties, including Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), could rally behind a single candidate in only six of the 46 districts.

In four of the 46 electoral districts—Fukui No. 2, Shizuoka No. 3, Wakayama No. 2 and Oita No. 2—multiple conservative candidates, including those from the LDP, are running.

The opposition parties were able to unite behind a single candidate in only the Oita No. 2 district.

(This article was written by Takuro Chiba and Nobuhiko Tajima.)

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