2021 Japanese general election
General elections were held in Japan on 31 October 2021, as required by the constitution. Voting took place in all constituencies in order to elect members to the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet. As the constitution requires the cabinet to resign in the first Diet session after a general election, the elections will also lead to a new election for Prime Minister in the Diet, and the appointment of a new cabinet, although ministers may be re-appointed. The election was the first general election of the Reiwa era. The election  followed a tumultuous period in Japanese politics which saw the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2020 due to health issues and the short premiership of his successor Yoshihide Suga, who stepped down as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after only about a year in office due to poor approval ratings. The period since the previous general election in 2017 also saw the consolidation of much of the country's centre-left into a newly strengthened Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and the forming of the left-wing populist party Reiwa Shinsengumi led by former actor  Taro Yamamoto. The LDP, led by new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, maintained a comfortable majority despite losing seats. The primary two left-wing opposition parties, the CDP and the Japanese Communist Party, both underperformed expectations and lost seats relative to their standings in the chamber immediately before the election. The CDP's poor results led to the resignation of party leader Yukio Edano shortly after the election. The Osaka-based conservative party Ishin no Kai gained 30 seats, becoming the third-largest party in the chamber. Background. Following the 2017 general election, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) continued to find  itself in a dominant position as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led the party to a third consecutive victory, the first for a single Prime Minister since 1953. While the LDP's strong showing seemed to suggest momentum for Abe's long-held goal of revising the anti-war Article 9 of the Constitution, the prospect for revision was thwarted due to procedural obstacles in the Diet from opposition parties and the ruling coalition losing its two-thirds majority in the House of Councillors in the 2019 election. Resignation of Shinzo Abe and election of Yoshihide Suga. Abe's approval ratings  suffered in 2018 as several favoritism scandals dominated media coverage, however he was still re-elected as President of the LDP in September 2018 and became the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history on 19 November 2019 and the longest-serving consecutive Prime Minister on 24 August 2020. However, Abe shocked observers when he announced on 28 August 2020 that he would resign the premiership due to a sudden resurgence of his ulcerative colitis. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was elected the next President of the LDP in September 2020 and succeeded Abe as Prime Minister days later. Opposition  party consolidation. Meanwhile, Japan's many opposition parties remained fractured and disunited. The Constitutional Democratic Party, seeking to establish itself as the primary centre-left opposition party against the LDP, merged with majorities of the Democratic Party for the People and the Social Democratic Party as well as several independent lawmakers in late 2020, officially re-organizing as a new party while retaining the same name and Yukio Edano as leader. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike's national party Kibō no Tō was dissolved in May 2018 after it merged with the Democratic Party to form the Democratic Party for the  People, while Koike herself was re-elected in a landslide in 2020 as an independent. The period since 2017 also saw the creation of Reiwa Shinsengumi, a left-wing populist party formed by former actor Taro Yamamoto, whose central policy position is abolition of the consumption tax. Suga's popularity falls and cabinet failure. While beginning office relatively popular, Prime Minister Suga's approval ratings gradually worsened due to public dissatisfaction over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including Japan's slow vaccine rollout compared to the rest of the developed world, and his management of the delayed 2020 Tokyo  Olympic Games. The LDP lost three Diet by-elections in April 2021 and also failed to win an outright majority in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election in July despite winning the most seats. Analysts attributed the losses to Suga's low approval ratings. Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and COVID-19 surge. When the Olympics were eventually held in July to August 2021, public sentiment rose as Japanese athletes secured a record haul of Olympic medals. However, this did not translate into an upturn in Suga's personal ratings as the event coincided with a state of emergency while COVID-19 cases in  Japan continued to surge from the Delta variant. By the time the Tokyo Olympics ended, the country experienced more than a million cases. In a Asahi Shimbun poll taken at the end of the Olympics, the Cabinet's approval ratings fell to an all-time low of 28%, even though 56% of the public agreed that hosting the Olympics was the right decision signifying concern over the government's inability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the government's pandemic response is likely to be one of the election issues. Although Suga claimed there is no evidence that  the Olympics contributed to a surge in daily cases in Tokyo and other parts of Japan, experts, including the government's chief medical adviser believe the Games undermined official messaging on virus rules and encouraged people to become complacent. 2021 LDP leadership election and resignation of Suga. Following the Olympics, speculation rose that several LDP lawmakers, such as former ministers Sanae Takaichi, Seiko Noda, 2020 leadership candidate Fumio Kishida and party policy chief Hakubun Shimomura were preparing to run for the LDP leadership against Suga when his term as party president ends in September, in the lead up to the  election. The defeat of candidate Hachiro Okonogi, who is Suga's associate, in the Yokohama mayoral election on 22 August added pressure on the prime minister and increased speculation about his political future. On 3 September, Suga announced that he would not run for re-election for the LDP leadership citing low approval ratings, paving the way for a new LDP leader and Prime Minister to take the party into the general election. On 29 September, former foreign minister and centrist candidate Fumio Kishida defeated three other candidates and became the new leader of the LDP. He was elected by  the Diet as the 100th Prime Minister of Japan on 4 October. Opposition forms common policy platform. On 8 September, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and Reiwa Shinsengumi formed a joint policy platform and an anti-LDP civil coalition for the upcoming election. The platform covered six areas: constitutionalism, measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, reducing economic disparities, transitioning to a decarbonized society, gender equality and government transparency. Policies in the platform included: As part of the agreement, members of the 4 parties involved withdrew from running in several of the single -seat constituencies to avoid vote splitting. The Japanese Communist Party withdrew 22 candidates in total, with only 106 candidates running for the JCP in total. This number was the lowest amount of candidates fielded by the JCP since the first election following Japan's electoral reform in 1996. Taro Yamamoto from Reiwa Shinsengumi withdrew from his race in the single member Tokyo 8th district for the CDP's Harumi Yoshida, choosing instead to run in the Tokyo PR block. Reiwa Shinsengumi withdrew 7 candidates to avoid vote splitting amongst the opposition, accounting for 40% of its planned slate of candidates . Formation, then withdrawal of First no Kai. On 4 October, the regional Tokyo-based political party Tomin First no Kai announced that it had created a new national party called First no Kai. The party said that it planned to enter candidates for single-seat constituencies in Tokyo, and said that while current Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike will not be running, she will cooperate with the party. First no Kai will be led by Chiharu Araki, a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly who is also leader of Tomin First no Kai. However, on 15 October, the party said  they would not be fielding any candidates for the election and would concentrate on the next election instead. Analysts believed that Kishida's bringing forward of the election gave little time for recruitment of candidates, thus leading to the decision to sit out this election. Election date. Under the post-occupation interpretation of Article 7 of the Constitution, the cabinet may instruct the Emperor to dissolve the House of Representatives for a snap election. Elections must be held within 40 days after dissolution. The only time since the Second World War that the House of Representatives was not dissolved before  the end of its term was in 1976. If the House of Representatives completes a full four-year term, the election must be held within 30 days before that, unless the Diet is invoked, in session or about to be closed at the time. The previous House of Representatives' term ended on 21 October. An extraordinary session of the National Diet was necessary in early October to elect the new prime minister. Depending on when that Diet session closed and if and when the new cabinet dissolved the House of Representatives, possible election dates ranged from late October to 14  November without dissolution or up to 28 November with dissolution. Since the election was held in late October, the 2021 election was the first in post-war history to be held not only at, but after the actual end of term (21 October). On 4 October, the newly-elected prime minister Fumio Kishida scheduled the election for 31 October, with dissolution of the House of Representatives on 14 October, the final day of the extraordinary Diet session and campaigning set to begin on 19 October. Previous considerations. With the resignation of Shinzo Abe in 2020 from his position as prime  minister due to health issues, speculation rose of the possibility that a snap election would be held before the end of the full term, but this in fact did not happen. Before the resignation announcement of Yoshihide Suga in 2021, the government did consider a plan to hold a general election on 17 October, several days before the expiration of the four-year term for House of Representatives members, government sources said on 30 August. Party manifestos. Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP manifesto, titled "Create a new era together with you" was released on 12 October and included: Observers commented  that Prime Minister Kishida's promises during his LDP leadership campaign were missing from the manifesto, and the manifesto was heavily influenced by LDP's conservative figures like Sanae Takaichi, Akira Amari and ex-prime minister Shinzo Abe. Constitutional Democratic Party. On 13 October, the CDPJ added into its manifesto: Komeito. Komeito policies included: Japanese Communist Party. On 12 October, the JCP announced its manifesto, including the following proposals: Nippon Ishin no Kai. The Nippon Ishin no Kai manifesto featured pledges including: Results. Many polls had predicted a weakened LDP or even a complete loss of government control in the  elections, with one poll by "The Japan Times" suggesting the party would lose around 40 seats. Though the LDP did lose 25 seats compared to the previous elections, they comfortably maintained their single-party majority in the Diet. The opposition coalition of CDP, JCP, SDP, and Reiwa Shinsengumi failed to increase its seat share, suffering a net loss of thirteen seats compared to the outgoing parliament. The CDP itself remained the largest opposition party, finishing second with 96 seats; although this marked an increase on the 55 seats won by the original CDP in the 2017 elections, the party had  held 109 seats going into the elections following the merger with the Democratic Party for the People. The JCP lost two seats going from 12 to 10, the SDP kept it's one constituency seat in Okinawa, and Reiwa Shinsengumi increased its seats from one prior to the election to three. The Osaka-based Nippon Ishin no Kai saw a strong third-place finish with 41 seats, a net gain of 30. The party won all seats in Osaka prefecture, except for four where they did not stand a candidate. The party also finished first in the Kinki Proportional Block . <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Reactions. The results were disappointing for Japan's left-wing opposition parties, who had sought to capitalize on the high disapproval ratings of LDP administrations in 2020–2021. The two largest opposition parties, the CDP and the JCP, both lost seats compared to the outgoing parliament, despite their unified candidate agreement and joint policy platform. CDP leader Yukio Edano announced two days after the election that he would resign as leader following the party's performance, triggering a leadership election. The right-wing populist Nippon Ishin no Kai gained 30 seats, receiving strong support in its home region  of Osaka. Ishin no Kai became the third-largest party in the chamber, which was seen by observers as a sign of voter dissatisfaction with both the ruling coalition and traditional opposition parties.