Voters in Tokyo have knocked the country’s ruling party from its position as the largest group in the city assembly, results showed, a warning sign for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s (pic) unpopular government before July elections.
Japanese media said it was a record-low result in the key local ballot for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has led the country almost continuously since 1955.
Public support for Ishiba, who took office last October, has been at rock-bottom for months, partly because of high inflation, with rice prices doubling over the past year.
The LDP took 21 Tokyo assembly seats in Sunday’s vote, including three won by candidates previously affiliated with the party but not officially endorsed following a political funding scandal.
This breaks the party’s previous record low of 23 seats from 2017, according to the Asahi Shimbun and other local media.
Ishiba described the results as a “very harsh judgement”.
“We will study what part of our campaign pledge failed to resonate with voters and ensure we learn from this,” he told reporters yesterday.
Tomin First no Kai, founded by Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, increased its seats in the 127- member assembly to 31, becoming the largest party.
The funding scandal “may have affected” the result, Shinji Inoue, head of the LDP’s Tokyo chapter, said on Sunday as exit polls were released.
Policies to address inflation “didn’t reach voters’ ears very well”, with opposition parties also pledging to tackle the issue, Inoue said.
Within weeks, Ishiba will face elections for parliament’s upper house, with reports saying the national ballot could be held on July 20.
Voters angry with rising prices and political scandals deprived Ishiba’s LDP and its junior coalition partner of a majority in the powerful lower house in October, marking the party’s worst general election result in 15 years.
Polls this month showed a slight uptick in support, however, thanks in part to policies to tackle high rice prices.
Several factors lie behind recent shortages of rice at Japanese shops, including an intensely hot and dry summer two years ago that damaged harvests nationwide, and panic-buying after a “mega-quake” warning last year.
The opposition Democratic Party For the People (DPP) won seats for the first time in the Tokyo assembly vote, securing nine.
The DPP’s campaign pledge for the July polls includes sales tax cuts to boost household incomes.
Sunday’s voter turnout rate was 47.6%, up from 42.4% four years ago, according to local media.
A record 295 candidates ran – the highest since 1997, including 99 women candidates, also a record high.
The number of women assembly members rose to 45 from 41, results showed. — AFP
