The LDP-Komeito coalition fell short of the 233 seats needed for a Lower House majority
to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party in a general election on Oct 27, with results reflecting a hung Parliament.
Mr Ishiba, who retained his Tottori No. 1 district seat, said that it was obvious that the LDP had not gained the forgiveness and understanding of voters regarding the slush fund scandal. But he added that he was not thinking of resigning as PM. The PM had set a simple majority of 233 seats for the LDP-Komeito coalition as the target going into the election. The public’s refusal to give him this mandate would increase pressure within the LDP for him to resign, given that he was chosen as party leader under fractious terms.
He would also have to fight tooth and nail for political survival, with options including bringing independent lawmakers into the fold, or to engage in uncomfortable power-sharing arrangements with other conservative opposition parties like the ascendant Democratic Party for the People and Japan Innovation Party .
There is also a slim chance that a hotchpotch of fragmented opposition parties may coalesce around the leadership of former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda, 67, who now heads the CDP, to make up numbers for a parliamentary majority.Mr Noda rode a wave of dissatisfaction over the LDP’s handling of a slush fund scandal, in which dozens of lawmakers were found to have kept millions of yen of fundraising income off the books.
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