Japan faces long-term challenges despite ruling parties’ election success
The third House of Councillors election since the launch of the second administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ended. And while Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has fewer seats in the upper house than it did before the election, the ruling LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito managed to maintain the majority in the chamber. One could say that voters indicated a certain measure of support for the long-term administration, which has been in power for 6 1/2 years.
There are misgivings, however, about whether the upper house election was one that contributed to solving the long-term challenges that Japan faces of depopulation, the dwindling birthrate, and the growing proportion of the elderly.
In Japan’s bicameral legislature, the House of Councillors is referred to as “the chamber of careful deliberation.” This is because unlike the House of Representatives, which can be dismissed, and a snap general election called at any time during the lower house legislators’ four-year terms, upper house lawmakers are guaranteed six-year terms. What is sought from upper house members are distance from interparty conflict, and big-picture deliberation on policies.
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