THE general election on December 14th cost ¥63 billion (over $500m), and came just two years after the previous one. So many Japanese could not see the point of it that only 52.7% of voters went to the polls—a post-war low. Yet for Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, the decision to call the election seems vindicated. Even though his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost three seats in the lower house of the Diet, to finish with 291 seats, that is not bad for an incumbent party in the midst of a recession with a leader whose popularity is falling. What is more, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, Komeito, more than made up for the loss by gaining seats. As a result the ruling coalition was returned with 326 out of 475 seats, one more than before dissolution in November. Crucially, it keeps its two-thirds majority, which will allow it to pass laws without the approval of the upper house, should the coalition lose its (slimmer) majority there in upper-house elections in 2016.
Mr Abe’s campaign slogan was that “There is no other way to economic recovery” than “Abenomics”, his vaunted programme, high on spin, of aggressive monetary easing to weaken the yen, boost the stockmarket and generate inflation; fiscal spending through huge budget deficits; and—though too little of this has been seen yet—structural change to boost the long-run rate of growth.
It is the job of the opposition to hold the government’s policies to account and to suggest alternatives, yet the Democratic Party of Japan was in no state to do either. It is a shadow of the force that broke the LDP’s long grip on power in 2009, promising to reshape Japanese politics but in the end governing hopelessly for three years. Though it picked up 11 seats this time, its total haul of 73 seats was miserable. At least its ineffectual leader, Banri Kaieda, lost his seat, giving younger modernisers a shot at rebuilding the broken party. For the time being, says Gerald Curtis of Columbia University, voters returned Mr Abe because they did not want Japan to go back to its recent pattern of revolving-door politics.
With a general election now not required for another four years, Mr Abe can claim to have consolidated his position within his party and in the country. He could become one of the longest-serving Japanese prime ministers. Mr Abe claims that he will now redouble his efforts to revive Japan’s economy and make ordinary people feel better off. The economic difficulties in Japan’s regions hung over the campaign. Even though the stockmarket has soared and the property market in Tokyo and other big cities is returning to health, household incomes have failed to keep pace with the early shoots of inflation. Household demand plummeted following a rise in the consumption tax in April, throwing the success of Abenomics into doubt. And Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, has just cut the government’s debt rating by a notch.
Yet perhaps the economy will improve in the coming months. Mr Abe has postponed the next rise in the consumption tax until April 2017. And now labour is tight in various sectors, from construction to exports. With unemployment at just 3.5%, it is reasonable to assume that wages might soon begin to rise. Mr Abe might get lucky.
The question is what he does with his luck. He says he will push on faster with a suite of structural reforms. Speaking before the election, Mr Abe promised progress in agriculture, health care, making the labour market more flexible, and liberalising the electricity market by separating transmission from generation. Notably, he said that a breakthrough with the United States in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade negotiations was imminent. That would send a powerful signal that Japan is serious about reform.
Yet for Mr Abe the right-wing nationalist, economics is not his chief passion, and economic strength matters mainly as a means, as he sees it, to restoring national pride and even recasting Japan’s historical narrative. Straight after his election victory the prime minister spoke of the LDP’s most “cherished wish” to rewrite the pacifist post-war constitution, imposed in 1946 by Japan’s American vanquishers. Amending the constitution requires a two-thirds vote from both houses of the Diet, as well as a majority in a national referendum. Mr Abe pledged this week to “deepen national understanding” of the need for Japan to pen its own document, including rewriting the stipulations on pacifism.
Such a drive would prove a huge distraction, and would be unlikely to succeed. The newly strengthened Komeito, backed by a large Buddhist organisation, has a strongly pacifist streak. Some of Mr Abe’s allies with even weirder views than his of Japan’s wartime history fared badly in the election. The hard-right Party for Future Generations, led by the 82-year old Shintaro Ishihara, a cantankerous former Tokyo governor, was all but wiped out. Meanwhile the pacifist Japanese Communist Party more than doubled its presence in the Diet, to 21 seats. Despite Mr Abe’s majority in the Diet, this (plus his falling ratings) will constrain his ability to carry out a project that most Japanese do not want. The hope is that he will swiftly grasp this.
Meanwhile, the legislative agenda will get back into gear in a special session of the Diet starting soon. Mr Abe’s cabinet will remain unchanged, following a bungled reshuffle in September. The budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year will be the first item on the agenda, including a supplementary spending package to boost the economy and help households suffering from the higher import costs from a weak yen.
After the budget, and crucial local elections in April, harder tasks loom. One will be to pass bills to implement a new ruling on collective-self defence to allow Japan to come to the aid of allies, notably America—a change expected to draw heated public opposition. Another controversial decision will be an attempt to restart more of the country’s nuclear-power stations. Two reactors at the Sendai plant in Satsumasendai in Kagoshima prefecture have already got backing from Japan’s nuclear regulator and from the local city assembly to restart. The next ones could be reactors at the Takahama plant in Fukui prefecture. Advisers of Mr Abe say that restarting nuclear plants will not be that great a challenge. But given the low public trust in nuclear power, each operation is likely to prove an energy-sapping battle, requiring local consensus.
Dispiritingly for reformists in the government, Mr Abe made little mention of his reform priorities during the campaign. His supporters argue that both the bureaucracy and many inside the LDP itself bitterly oppose structural reforms. But his victory strengthens his grip on both. He has no excuse not to forge ahead. The next three or four months will be pivotal for Mr Abe—and for Japan.
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