The Japanese Parliament will elect the country’s Prime Minister at a special meeting; with a high degree of probability, Shigeru Ishiba, who took over as Prime Minister on October 1, will be able to retain his position as head of the Cabinet.
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However, a certain intrigue still remains.
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The election for prime minister follows the Oct. 27 general election for the key lower house of parliament, the results of which were an unpleasant surprise for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito coalition. The Liberal Democratic Party received 191 seats instead of 247, and Komeito 24 instead of 32.
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The defeat in their constituencies and the loss of parliamentary portfolios by two incumbent ministers of the government formed just four weeks earlier, and by the head of the Komeito party, who also took over the party only in September, were significant highlights of the full scale of the coalition’s electoral failure.
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In order to elect a prime minister in one round, his candidacy must receive more than half, or 233 of the 465 votes of deputies. Until now, the LDP alone had the necessary number of votes. Since each party nominates its leader as a candidate in the first round, most likely the prime minister will not be elected.
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Thus, most likely, a second round will be held.
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Opposition parties, it would seem, received a majority as a result of the elections – 250 out of 465 seats, and this could allow them to appoint their own prime minister. However, the lack of unity between the opposition parties themselves, as well as the heterogeneity of independent deputies, casts doubt on this possibility.
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For example, six of the 12 independent candidates are actually LDP members who were denied electoral support by the party because they were involved in a financial scandal. However, this did not prevent them, having won the elections, from immediately joining the LDP faction, adding their votes in the election of the Prime Minister. Together with Komeito’s votes, the ruling coalition can count on at least 221 votes in the second round.
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The main opposition force, the Constitutional Democratic Party, has 148 votes, which is significantly more than it had before the elections to the lower house – 99, but still not enough to make its leader Yoshihiko Noda Prime Minister of Japan. To do this, she needs the support of other opposition parties. If she manages to convince the Noda Japan Renewal Party (38 votes), the Communists (8), the Reiwa Party (9) and other minor parties to vote in the second round, she will still be a few votes short of bridging the gap with the ruling coalition.
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The opposition’s cards were confused by the “dark horse” of the last elections – the People’s Democratic Party. Unexpectedly for everyone, the party with a modest seven seats in parliament turned out to be the third opposition force following the election results, increasing its presence in parliament fourfold. This allowed her to begin a cycle of negotiations and bargaining with both the Constitutional Democratic Party and the ruling coalition immediately after the elections. As a result of the negotiations, the insignificant political force was able to further raise its price by declaring that all of its 28 deputies would vote for their leader in both the first and second rounds. Such a vote will invalidate the votes of these 28 deputies, which will allow the party to demonstrate its independence from both the ruling coalition and the opposition, but in fact will bring victory to the LDP and Komeito, as if these votes were cast for Noda, he would became the new prime minister.
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Most likely, the Democratic People’s Party will vote as promised, and Shigeru Ishiba will be elected prime minister. In this case, he will form his cabinet on the same day, in which there will be at least three replacements related to the election results: in addition to the two ministers who did not retain their parliamentary mandates, Tetsuo Saito, who was transport minister from the Komeito party on Saturday led the party instead of the previous party leader who was defeated in the elections. In this case, it is expected that after the ceremony of confirmation of new ministers by Emperor Naruhito of Japan, the second composition of the cabinet headed by Shigeru Ishiba will be considered officially formed.
