Ishiba handles minority government well over the six-month session

Japan Times

8 hours ago

After beginning in January amid concerns of political paralysis under a minority Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition, parliament wraps up Sunday with the LDP and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba showing they can work with opposition parties individually and collectively to pass the budget and select pieces of legislation.
With parliamentary business concluding, all eyes are on next month's Upper House election, as the LDP and ruling coalition partner Komeito look to retain their majority, while pocketbook economic issues are at the top of voter concerns.
The LDP-Komeito coalition was forced to seek opposition party cooperation following their loss of majority in October's Lower House election, which Ishiba had called. The current session of parliament began with questions about whether the 2025 budget would be passed by April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.
This deadline put Ishiba in the hot seat, facing questions about whether he had the political skills to convince at least one opposition party to support the ¥115.5 trillion ($738 billion) budget bill in order to get it passed in the Lower House, yet not compromise so much that it angered members of his own party.
Ishiba's strategy was to have discussions centered on winning the cooperation of at least one of three major opposition parties: the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Democratic Party for the People.
In the end, Nippon Ishin, whose leader Seiji Maehara has a good relationship with Ishiba due to their shared love of trains, agreed to support the budget bill after securing a deal with the LDP to abolish the household income cap on eligibility for ¥118,800 in aid for public and private high school students, and to raise the amount of annual aid for private high school students to ¥457,000 per person beginning in fiscal 2026. Both were key Nippon Ishin budget priorities.
Though slightly modified in the Upper House — where the LDP and Komeito hold a majority — and sent back to the Lower House, the budget was ultimately approved and went into effect on April 1.
Ishiba's friendly relations with Maehara were a big factor in getting Nippon Ishin to agree to the budget. But political journalist Takuya Nishimura says Ishiba also benefited from the inability of the opposition parties to cooperate against the LDP.
'If the opposition parties, with their Lower House majority, had been united in opposing the LDP budget bill, Ishiba would have had to include one of the opposition parties in the ruling coalition, or offer them a Cabinet post to help get it passed,' Nishimura says.
Either choice risked creating problems and rivalries for power within the LDP as well as Komeito. Instead, taking advantage of the inability of the opposition parties to band together, Ishiba chose to continue seeking parliamentary cooperation where possible, while keeping opposition parties and members outside the coalition and Cabinet.
Ishiba's success with getting the budget passed did not give him much of a political boost, though. By mid-April — after U.S. President Donald Trump's sudden announcement that he would suspend, for 90 days, a 25% levy on Japanese auto imports and a reciprocal 24% tariff on other goods while the U.S. and Japan negotiated the issue — he was looking at an approval rating of just 23.1%.
A lack of trust in the Ishiba Cabinet and perceptions of weak leadership in general were cited as reasons for his unpopularity. But there were also calls to lower the consumption tax in the face of Trump's tariff threats and rising prices, something which the LDP resisted.
Ishiba did manage to negotiate agreements with different opposition parties on some key pieces of legislation. In April, the CDP, the DPP and Nippon Ishin joined the LDP and Komeito in supporting a cyber defense bill designed to allow the government to respond more quickly to possible cyberattacks from abroad.
The CDP also supported an LDP and Komeito-backed pension reform bill that included expanded coverage of the kosei nenkin public pension program to a wider range of part-time and nonregular workers.
Other legislative issues, however, proved more contentious. There remains broad disagreement within the ruling and opposition parties over which restrictions to place on corporate political donations and whether they should be banned outright. The discussion has been put off until at least the autumn session of parliament.
Likewise, differences between the ruling and opposition parties means that two bills allowing married couples to have different surnames were not voted on in this parliamentary session.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to Constitutional Democratic Party leader Yoshihiko Noda in parliament on June 11. |
JIJI
Ishiba's political popularity took a hit after his agriculture minister sparked public outrage with a comment saying he had never paid for rice — amid rising prices — and was forced to resign last month.
But the prime minister's fortunes improved in late May after selecting agriculture reform-minded Shinjiro Koizumi as the new minister. Koizumi ordered the release of older, cheaper government-stockpiled rice in a move welcomed by consumers.
By mid-June, Ishiba's poll numbers were improving. A June 13-16 Jiji Press poll showed a Cabinet approval rate of 27%, a six point increase over the previous month. Despite talk of an opposition-backed no-confidence motion, which Ishiba said would result in a snap Lower House election, the CDP said Thursday it would not submit one.
With the Upper House election looming, Ishiba finishes parliament with weak poll numbers for his Cabinet and party. But he also now has a parliamentary record of getting important legislation passed in the more powerful Lower House, and he is further aided by the fact he has no serious challengers within the LDP and the opposition remains divided.
That, in turn, gives Ishiba more political breathing room to address controversial pocketbook issues in the coming election, including debates over cutting the consumption tax, the effectiveness of cash handouts and whether to abolish the gasoline tax, all of which are expected to feature across party platforms.
'As long as the LDP does not have a majority in the Lower House, Ishiba seems to be the best leader to deal with the minority government. There is no LDP rival who can deal with the current Lower House situation better than Ishiba,' says Nishimura.