The LDP won the Lower House election, but it has few reasons to celebrate

Japan election results Sunday night was shaping up to be a night that many Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers would rather forget, based on exit poll data pointing to the ruling party losing a majority of its own.

But as the night progressed and ballots were counted, it turned out to be one that could be seen in a much more positive way. Defying some media predictions, the ruling party ended up achieving an “absolute stable majority” of 261 by itself, allowing the party to chair all standing committees and have its lawmakers make up the majority of members on those bodies.

Combined with the seats obtained by its junior coalition partner Komeito — which obtained three additional seats, raising its tally to 32 — the ruling bloc won 293 seats.

The duo saw a decrease in their pre-election strength of 305 seats, but considering media projections indicated an uphill battle during the campaign, the outcome was more than satisfactory for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who had laid out a goal for the ruling coalition of achieving a simple majority.

But instead of basking in glory as a victorious party leader, the prime minister looked downcast on Monday while speaking to reporters during a news conference at the LDP headquarters.

He remained humble even when he mentioned the LDP’s comfortable majority, acknowledging the LDP had received “harsh comments” throughout the election and promising to analyze the results of each constituency, with the resulting lessons being applied to national politics and the next election.

“This was a very tough election, but it showed people’s desire to continue building the future of this country under stable politics overseen by the Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito administration and the Kishida administration,” Kishida said. “I am very grateful for this and I will not let you down.”

Although lawmakers, pundits and academics are still analyzing the reasons for the ruling parties’ victory, a series of factors — such as unified opposition candidates falling flat and low voter turnout — might have tipped the scales in favor of the LDP and Komeito.

The LDP benefited from a multitude of factors. To start with, the initiative by the left-leaning opposition camp to consolidate candidates in single-seat districts did not go well. The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan teamed up with the Japanese Communist Party and other minority parties to field unified candidates in more than 210 districts nationwide. In the end, the CDP earned 96 seats, a fall from its pre-election strength of 110.

Considering the CDP’s single-digit approval ratings, LDP supporters were always unlikely to switch allegiance to the opposition parties, said Naoko Taniguchi, a political scientist at Keio University, adding that nonetheless working with the JCP might have allowed the opposition to compete neck-and-neck with the LDP in many districts.

“Overall, there might have been a lingering sense of rejection against the JCP as a governing party,” she said.