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Official campaigning for Japan's general election kicked off Tuesday, with over 1,180 candidates running for the 475-seat House of Representatives, or the lower house, in the country's bicameral parliament, but the result may disappoint voters as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) may secure an unpopular victory due to a divided opposition camp and a twisted electoral system.
Separate subjects divide opposition
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who also heads the LDP, dissolved the lower house on Nov. 21 to delay a second consumption tax hike planned next year, as the first in April dragged Japan's economy into a recession, in what he called a move to turn to the voters to judge the dissolution.
But the move was considered unnecessary because none of the political parties here agreed to further increase the sales tax by another 2 percentage points and the opposition parties criticized the fact that the lower house dissolution is actually aimed at extending Abe's administration for two more years, regarding its declining support rate.
The LDP, thereafter, immediately put the focal point on Abe's economic policies dubbed"Abenomics"in an effort to lead the debate for the snap election and the strategy seemingly worked as it left little time for the opposition parties to map out detailed policies to challenge"Abenomics"and to narrow their divergence on other topics.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the major opposition party here, chided"Abenomics"fiercely by saying the policy package failed to address Japan's economic woes, but the party also failed to offer a convincing alternative to"Abenomics."
As analysts have said, if the opposition camp wants to beat the LDP, it must forge an alliance ahead of the election, however, the opposition parties remained divided on some key topics.
The DPJ, Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Japanese Communist Party (JCP) oppose a cabinet bill allowing the Japanese Self- Defense Forces to exercise the right to collective self-defense, criticizing the move as running contrary to Japan's pacifist Constitution, while the Japan Innovation Party and Future Generation Party maintain a similar stance with the LDP, with the latter, a far-right winged one, even calling for accelerating Abe' s ultimate goal of revising the war-renouncing Constitution.
Also on the issue of controversial nuclear policy, the SDP and JCP said no to restarting the nation's idled reactors, with the Future Generation Party agreeing to put the country's reactors back online. The DPJ and the Innovation Party, however, have taken an ambiguous attitude towards the issue.
Public wills run against voting intention
Recent polls ahead of the election campaigning suggested that the disapproval rate for Abe's cabinet surpassed its support rate for first time since Abe launched his government in late 2012 when his LDP defeated the DPJ to win the last general election.
But the contradictory issue here is that the LDP ranked first when respondents were asked by the same polls which party they will cast on their ballots. The edge the LDP took is not a small one, but the reading was double the DPJ secured, although about 40 percent of respondents have not yet made their decisions.
The reason probably lies in the fact that that the opposition parties failed to come up with a more united policy platform ahead the election and the depressing scenario would force some voters who disagree with the LDP's policies to abandon their ballots or to frustratedly vote for the LDP, according to Yasuo Hasebe, a professor at the Waseda University, in a recent editorial.
Analysts here said the lack of economic measures by the opposition camp would fail to transfer public discontent with" Abenomics"to their votes against Abe and his LDP. However, Japan' s low voting rate gives a chance to the LDP, the largest political party in Japan, and its partner the Komeito Party as the two have a fixed support power base.
A poll released by the Mainichi Shimbun on Monday showed about 70 percent of respondents thought"Abenomics"did not bring economic recovery to Japan and they also did not feel the economic improvement that the prime minister emphasized. But about 38 percent suggested that they will cast their vote for the LDP, and votes for the DPJ and the Innovation Party stood at 12 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
The Nikkei Business Daily said in a recent editorial that the main opposition parties failed to take advantage of public dissatisfaction with the Abe's administration, adding that these voters, who have grudges against the LDP and are worried about Japan's future, have no alternative but to choose their second choice -- to vote for the LDP.
Electoral bug amplifies LDP's advantage
Abe said Monday in a debate that the LDP-Komeito alliance aims at securing the majority in the lower house, meaning the alliance need to seek at least 238 seats in the 475-seat chamber. As the bloc maintained 326 seats before the election, they could remain the ruling bloc even if they lost 88 seats in the election.
Furthermore, the opposition camp did not aim at overturning the LDP-led parliament since the DPJ has only filed less than 200 candidates for the election.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties have also failed to come up with common candidates for dozens of small constituencies, in which only one candidate could be elected. The scene also gives the LDP candidates an opportunity to win with less-than-half the support rate in their constituencies.
The same scenario was staged in the 2012 general election where the LDP-Komeito ally only gained 26.53 million votes but obtained 246 seats in small constituencies, compared with 54 seats secured by the opposition parties, which gained 33.09 million votes. The public was in favor of the opposition but the seas of ballots they casted to the opposition parties were in vain.
Again, the electoral system is also twisted by the disparity in the weight of individual votes across different constituencies.
The country's Supreme Court ruled last week that the 2013 upper house election was held"in a state of unconstitutionality"due to the problem. The top court also ruled the 2012 general election, which brought the LDP into power, was held in such an unconstitutional state.
The ruling will beg questions about the legality of the prime minister's administration and a series of bills and laws approved by the LDP-led parliament.
Civil groups of lawyers have been petitioning a number of High Courts in Japan over the issue, which in one case has seen votes in the least populated constituency worth 4.77 times more than a vote in the most populous one, and they are now expected to file lawsuits to nullify the results of the upcoming lower house election for the same reason.
Although Abe vowed to reform the system in his political pledge in 2012, little progress have been made by his administration after a lapse of two years. "None of the parties have been very keen to collaborate to reform the system, but the LDP too has been dragging its feet. Obviously, the LDP has an advantage in maintaining the current situation that gives more weight to the votes in the rural areas where it is strong,"Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
