Japan Lower House election - Dec 14, 2014

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Japanese working-age population is collapsing. They are now losing about a million people per year from the 15-64 age category. This must be discouraging companies from investing domestically, while also increasing fear about the future (probably helpful to Abe). It also pushes more people onto fixed incomes which are hurt by inflation. Japan is so different to any other advanced economy, with mighty government debt financed by banks and extremely low unemployment (currently below 4%; below 6% since the last millennium), probably propped up by the massive annual fiscal stimulus.

This matters for politics because there is no party coming out with alternatives to Abenomics, which is partly why I do not expect LDP to lose much. Abe seems to have consolidated support among nationalists so they have little reason to reject him, nor does he have much need to appeal to liberals (who don't typically like Abenomics anyway). Really, the LDP does need to do very badly before a Japanese majority favours the opposition, and that is reflected at the moment in the polarisation of parties which could have formed an anti-LDP coalition had they kept united front.

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The outcome has been higher inflation without improving economic activity. Japan has already had very low unemployment (currently below 4%) and very high government debt thanks to fiscal stimulus since the mid-1990s. More stimulus just seems to crowd out private-sector investment as people fear that debt will eventually have to fall from above 200 per cent of gross domestic product. But the DPJ do not have a real alternative plan, nor do Abe's LDP opponents.

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The DPJ isn't a European-style left-wing party. As in many other democracies, the generic-European left is a deeply unpopular idea in Japan.

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OK, so then it seems Abe has little to lose from this election. He's not going to get a constitutional-revisionist super-majority anyway, due to the actions of the other parties. Nor is he going to lose a majority with KP. DPJ appear to gain too. The losers look like smaller groups who have been forced to fragment and polarise pro- or anti-LDP.

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Ouch! So it does indeed seem like an election good for LDP-Komei/DPJ, bad for others.

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Ouch! So it does indeed seem like an election good for LDP-Komei/DPJ, bad for others.

In fact, the Communists are also doing well and JIP is firmly in third place.

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They are gaining hundreds of thousands of PR votes in Kinki, Tokyo, and proably elsewhere too.

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Asahi and NHK have called all seats. Compared to 2012:

LDP 290 (-4)
Komei 35 (+4)

DPJ 73 (+16)
JIP 41 (new; -1 from dissolution)
JCP 21 (+13)
PFG 2 (new; -17 from dissolution)
SDP 2 (nc)
PLP 2 (new; -3 from dissolution)
Ind 9 (+4)

JIP + PFG are down from to 43. JRP + YP scored 72 in 2012.

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My estimates of the PR vote from NHK figures:

LDP 17,560,837 (33.1%; +5.3%)
Komei 7,282,790 (13.7%; +1.8%)

DPJ 9,739,571 (18.3%; +2.9%)
JIP 8,359,479 (15.7%)
JCP 6,037,201 (11.4%; +5.2%)
PFG 1,408,251 (2.7%)
SDP 1,310,822 (2.5%; +0.1%)
PLP 1,026,634 (1.9%)
HRP 258,444 (0.5%; +0.2%)
Sano Hidemitsu's list 104,854 (0.2%)
NRP 16,562 (0.0%)

JIP + PFG won 9,767,730 (18.4%), down from 17,507,814 (29.2%) for JRP + YP in 2012.

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JIP is still close to DPJ on PR votes. DPJ has existed for less than two decades and has enjoyed one disastrous term in office. In the medium term, they may come to some arrangement to take power, but Japan is a country where rotation in office is evidently not a necessary part of democracy in the medium term.

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3) JCP PR did very well because of low turnout.

It's more than turnout; their PR vote rose from 3.7m in 2012 to 6.1m in 2014.

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The PR vote was much lower than the 4.7m district vote, I presume because Communist district candidates are so frequent compared to other parties.

http://www.electionresources.org/jp/representatives.php?election=2012

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Where is the JCP FPTP seat?

Okinawa's 1st district, including Naha city and the islands directly west of Okinawa main island.

The mayor of Naha was Takeshi ONAGA, notable as the independent elected in November as Governor of Okinawa on a US military base-closure pledge, supported by, among others, the Communists, SDP and Social Mass. The same coalition supported the new JCP member, who beat the LDP incumbent 40-37; the incumbent won a seat on the PR list, so remains a member of the Diet. It is probably fair to ascribe this to a lucky vote split; the right-wing former incumbent, who lost in 2012, held onto some of his vote in 2014 as a JIP candidate.

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Chugoku (中国)

Does this name ever get confusing?

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If Abe didn't win, nobody did, nor is it clear what winning would entail. He is in charge and nobody has a mandate to take over instead. DPJ certainly didn't win. They did a bit better than in 2012, but nowhere near a mandate to promote their own policies in government one day. Their apparent road to government is through JIP, but they are still closer to LDP in some senses.