Japan votes in a key election while Prime Minister Ishiba faces a possible loss: NPR

Tokyo – The Japanese voted on Sunday for seats in the smallest of the two parliamentary houses in Japan in a key election with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his power coalition faced with a possible defeat that could worsen the country’s political instability.

Voters decided half of the 248 seats in the upper room, minus the two rooms in the diet of Japan. The first results were expected on Sunday evening.

Ishiba has put the low bar, wanting a simple majority of 125 seats, which means that its Liberal Democratic party and its junior coalition partner supported by Buddhist Komeito must win 50 to add to the 75 seats they already have.

It is a large retirement from the 141 seats they had pre-electoral, but media investigations predict large setbacks for Ishiba.

On Sunday, a bad performance would not immediately trigger a change of government because the upper room does not have the power to deposit a confidence against a leader, but that would deepen the uncertainty about its fate and political stability of Japan. Ishiba would face calls within the LDP part to resign or find another coalition partner.

Prices, late income and heavy social security payments are the main problems for frustrated and short of money. Stricter measures targeting residents and foreign visitors have also become a key problem, with a booming populist party leading the campaign.

Sunday’s vote comes after Ishiba’s coalition lost a majority in the elections of the October Chamber of Bases, stung by previous corruption scandals, and his unpopular government has since been forced to make concessions to opposition to obtain legislation through Parliament. It has not been able to quickly provide effective measures to mitigate the price increase, including the basic food of traditional rice in Japan and the decrease in wages.

President Donald Trump added to pressure, complaining of a lack of progress in commercial negotiations and the lack of sales of American cars and American rice in Japan despite a deficit in national grain stocks. A 25% price that should take effect on August 1 was another blow for Ishiba.

An voter has a ballot in the elections of the House Superior in a polling station on Sunday July 20, 2025 in Tokyo. (Photo / Eugene Hoshiko)

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Eugene Hoshiko / AP

Ishiba resisted any compromise before the elections, but the prospect of a breakthrough after the election is just as clear because the minority government would have trouble making a consensus with the opposition.

The frustrated voters quickly turn to emerging populist parties. The eight main opposition groups, however, are too fractured to forge a common platform as a united front and gain the support of voters as a viable alternative.

The emerging populist party sanseeito stands out with the most difficult anti-foreign position with its Japanese “first” “” first “platform which offers a new agency to centralize policies related to foreigners. The party’s populist platform also includes anti-vaccin, anti-globalism and promotes traditional gender roles.

Curator of centrist opposition groups, including the main constitutional democratic party in Japan, or CDPJ, the DPP and Sanseeito have acquired significant land at the expense of liberal democrats.

The propagation of xenophobic rhetoric in the electoral campaign and on social networks has sparked demonstrations by human rights and alarmed foreign residents.

The LDP has almost continuously dominated Japanese post-war policy, contributing to its political stability and its social compliance.

Voters are divided between stability and change, with a certain concern expressed about the climbing of xenophobia.

Yuko Tsuji, a 43-year-old consultant, who came to a polling station inside a gymnasium in the city center of Tokyo with her husband, said that they both support the LDP for stability and unit and voted “for candidates who will not be part of the division”.

“If the ruling party does not govern properly, the conservative base will derive towards extremes. I therefore voted in the hope that the ruling party tightens things,” she said.

The self -employed worker Daiichi Nasu, 57, who came to vote with his dog, said that he hoped for a more inclusive and diversified society, with more open immigration and gender policies such as the authorization of married couples to keep names from separate family. “This is why I voted for the CDPJ,” he said. “I want to see progress on these fronts.”