Japan’s Upper House Elections of 20 July 2025: A Day of Reckoning for the Ruling Liberal Democratic Party
The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, and its junior coalition partner, the Buddhist Komeito party, together won just 47 of the contested seats in the 27th election to the 248-seat Upper House (House of Councillors, or Sangiin) of the National Diet on Sunday, 20 July 2025. They had needed to win 50 seats, adding to the 75 uncontested seats they already hold, to secure a simple majority of 125 seats in the chamber. The liberal Constitutional Democratic Party (CDPJ) won 22 seats, while the populist Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) secured 17. The voter turnout was 58.52%.
The most striking outcome of the election was that 14 seats went to Sanseito, which describes itself as a party of “ordinary Japanese citizens with the same mindset.” In keeping with trends elsewhere around the world, Sanseito campaigned on an anti-elitist, anti-immigration, and anti-globalisation agenda, while including consumption tax cuts and an increase in child benefits among its electoral policies. Its “Japanese First” platform has proved attractive to many since Sanseito was launched on YouTube in March 2020 by Kamiya Sohei, a former supermarket manager, English teacher, and Self-Defence Force reservist, who was once an LDP member himself. It was initially set up to challenge mask and vaccine mandates during the COVID pandemic. Kamiya went on to win his new party’s only seat in the upper chamber in 2022. His recent campaign has been energised by the electoral success of Donald Trump’s own “Make America Great Again” movement. Sanseito’s “10 Pillars” for nation-building include Pillar 10, which formalises its nationalist credentials through its commitment to “Building a national identity that protects and nurtures Japan’s freedom, culture, and uniqueness of Japanese character.” In particular, Sanseito upholds traditional gender roles, while opposing LGBTQ+ rights.
Sanseito has capitalised on growing concerns over the dilution of Japan’s hitherto monocultural identity by the growing numbers of immigrants and tourists, and by the impact of new arrivals on its already precarious welfare state. Japan had 3.8 million foreign-born residents by the end of 2024, accounting for 3% of the population. In addition, 36.9 million tourists visited the country last year, leading to widespread criticism of overtourism. The largest single group of foreigners with permanent residency in Japan consists of nationals of Korea, Taiwan, and other East Asian nations.
The 68-year-old Ishiba is unpopular within his own party, of which he became president in September 2024, and some LDP politicians are calling for a change in leadership. Within a month of his taking charge, the LDP lost control of the lower house in October 2024 as it fell three short of a simple majority in the House of Representatives (Shūgiin). After the July 2025 polls for the upper house, the LDP does not have a majority in either chamber of the National Diet for the first time in its history. To add to his woes, and despite the pro-American stance of the LDP, a favourable tariff deal has yet to be reached with the US, which is pressurising Japan to increase imports of American rice and step up defence spending. For the time being, Ishiba has promised to remain in office, despite his electoral reverses, to oversee ongoing tariff negotiations.
The LDP, Japan’s largest and most powerful political party, has dominated Japanese politics since its formation in November 1955 from the merger of the Japan Democratic Party and Liberal Party. It has only relinquished power twice, between 1993 and 1996 and again from 2009 to 2012. This one-party domination until 1993 was to become known as the ‘1955 system.’
Japan’s economy was characterised by stagnation, deflation, and slow growth during, and after, the ‘Lost Decade’ of the 1990s, which followed the bursting of the debt-funded real-estate and stock-market bubbles of the 1980s. The ‘Japanese Miracle’ of high and sustained economic growth between 1955 and 1973, which was achieved by a centralised economic system (state-directed industrial expansion), collaborative labour-management relations, an emphasis on exports, and restrictions on imports, has not been replicated as structural issues with Japan’s economy have stifled progress. Various attempts at economic reform by Prime Ministers such as Nakasone Yasuhiro, Koizumi Junichiro, Abe Shinzo, and others have had limited impact. Monetary policy measures (negative interest rates, quantitative easing) and fiscal stimulus (government spending) have not stimulated growth to the desired extent. At present, economic growth remains fragile from weak exports and is further threatened by impending Trump tariffs.
Rising inflation, stagnant wages, and high costs of living are major concerns for the electorate. High costs of rice, a household staple, have added to the financial burden on households. A rapidly ageing population, a shrinking workforce, job insecurity, and a falling birth rate are threatening Japan’s economy at a time of increased public spending on the nation’s social safety net (unemployment benefits, health insurance, pensions). High welfare spending has pushed public debt to over 230% of GDP.
Japan is confronting many of the problems that are to be seen in developed economies around the world. Growing discontent provides fertile soil for the spread of populism, something which has hitherto not made much impact on national politics but now threatens to make inroads into the LDP’s conservative voter base. For the present, it can be safely concluded that Sanseito’s fortunes are undeniably on the rise.
Ashis Banerjee