The post-election consensus
What the polls say about the outcome of the general election
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The Japanese public has had a week to digest the outcome of the 27 October general election, and, in new polls from the Asahi Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun-Fuji News, and the Japan News Network (as well as a Yomiuiri Shimbun poll last week), it appears that the public has reached a consensus around four main pillars.
First, the Ishiba government is unpopular, but voters are not clamoring for Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru to step down. The Ishiba government’s net approval shifted into negative territory in polls conducted during the general election, and polls taken after the election have revealed similar findings. In my ten-day weighted moving average, the Ishiba government’s approval is 37.2 percent while its disapproval is 51.3 percent. At the same time, however, few voters want Ishiba to be replaced. In the Asahi Shimbun poll, 61 percent said it was not necessary for him to step down due to the results of the election; only 24 percent said that he should resign. A Yomiuiri Shimbun poll conducted last week similarly found that only 26 percent thought he should resign, while 56 percent did not think it necessary. Meanwhile, the Sankei poll found that 46.1 percent say that it is appropriate for Ishiba to be selected as prime minister in the special session of the Diet that will open on 11 November, with Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) leader Noda Yoshihiko in a distant second at 17.4 percent.
It is therefore not Ishiba himself that is bringing down his government, but rather the public’s continuing discontent with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). For example, when Asahi asked respondents why they disapprove of the Ishiba government, 36 percent said because it was an LDP-centered government, compared with only 10 percent who said because the prime minister is Ishiba. In the Asahi poll, 64 percent said it was good that the LDP and Kōmeitō lost their majority in the House of Representatives; that figure was 58 percent in Yomiuri last week. In both Asahi and Yomiuri pluralities favor the LDP-Kōmeitō coalition remaining in power, but support is either weaker (only 43 percent in Asahi, down from 48 percent) or narrower (also 43 percent in Yomiuri, compared with 40 percent who want an opposition-centered government). Sankei, meanwhile, found voters evenly divided between preferring the LDP and Kōmeitō add additional coalition partners (30.2 percent), lead a minority government (30.5 percent), or give way to a CDP-led coalition government (31.1 percent). The LDP also lost some of the support it had regained after former prime minister Kishida Fumio opted to leave office, falling seven points to 26 percent in Asahi, thirteen points to 25 percent in Yomiuri, 8.5 points to 25.8 percent in Sankei, and 9.3 points to 24.6 percent in JNN.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) is now the third party, behind the CDP, in public affection if not in seats. The DPFP surged past Ishin no Kai in support following the general election, gaining eight points to 10 percent support in Asahi, six points to seven percent in Yomiuri, 8.8 points to 10.1 percent in Sankei, and 7.6 points to 9.1 percent in JNN, in each poll surging past Ishin, support for which largely held steady or fell slightly. The public does not think that the DPFP should join the ruling coalition: in Yomiuri, 51 percent opposed its joining the coalition, while in Asahi 42 percent said they preferred that the DPFP cooperate with other opposition parties, compared with 33 percent who want it to cooperate with the ruling parties. However, even if a plurality prefers that the DPFP cooperate with other opposition parties, the DPFP’s negotiations with the LDP and Kōmeitō over taxes and budgets are highly popular, supported by 63 percent compared with only 23 percent who oppose these talks. Similarly, in Sankei 65.1 percent support the DPFP’s working with the ruling coalition on an issue-by-issue basis; only 9.5 percent support its joining the ruling coalition. Sankei also found that the DPFP’s call for raising the annual income tax exemption from its current level of JPY 1.03mn is backed by a wide margin, with 77.2 percent in favor to 16.6 percent opposed. Whether or not the DPFP is able to continue building on this surge of public support, there clearly was little for the party to gain by joining the ruling coalition.
Finally, political reform will continue to shape the political environment and weigh on the LDP’s support. While only 9.7 percent of respondents told Sankei that “politics and money” is what they want the Ishiba government to prioritize – compared with 43.2 percent who said wages and prices and 34.8 percent who said economic policy – there is little question from post-election polling that the LDP’s corruption scandals were a factor in how the electorate voted on 27 October and will continue to shape the public’s perceptions of the Ishiba government. In Yomiuri, 90 percent said that they thought the scandals influenced election results; 79 percent said that they were dissatisfied with the LDP’s payments to local branches led by candidates the party had not nominated due to their involvement in the kickback scandal; and 61 percent said it was a factor in their decisions during the election, tied for second with social security behind growth and jobs at 68 percent. In Asahi, meanwhile, 82 percent said that the kickback scandal was a major factor in the election’s outcome; 82 percent were dissatisfied with the LDP’s payments to the local branches; and 67 percent were dissatisfied with the readmission into the party of LDP members forced to run as independents for their part in the kickback scandal. An overwhelming majority of 73 percent want Ishiba to reveal the facts of the kickback scandal fully, compared with only 19 percent who say that it is not necessary to do so.
The upshot is that in the aftermath of the general election, public opinion has stabilized, but conditions are not particularly favorable for Ishiba. The public seems largely satisfied now that the ruling coalition has been humbled; they do not want the DPFP, the flavor of the moment, to join the government and make the ruling coalition’s task easier; and they continue to see the LDP itself as the problem. For the LDP, facing upper house elections in less than a year, this might be the worst possible outcome. It is responsible for governing but constrained by the lack of a majority. The government it leads is unpopular, but not necessarily because of its leader, meaning that the party cannot assume that simply changing leaders again before the upper house elections will save it from another electoral defeat. And the public is not ready to move on from the LDP’s kickback scandals, keeping pressure on Ishiba to prioritize an issue that could not only further weaken the LDP’s public standing but could pit the party against itself.