Japan’s ruling coalition is likely to lose its majority in the upper house, according to an exit poll by local media, potentially fuelling political instability in the world’s fourth largest economy.
Voters in Japan cast their ballots on Sunday in an upper house election which was seen as a test of the popularity of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his ruling coalition.
Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and coalition partner Komeito needed 50 seats to retain control of the 248-seat upper chamber in an election where half the seats are up for grabs.
They are forecast to secure 32 to 51 seats, the exit poll by public broadcaster NHK showed on Sunday.
While the ballot does not directly determine whether Ishiba’s shaky minority government falls, it heaps pressure on the embattled leader who also lost control of the more-powerful lower house in October.
Ishiba’s poor performance does not immediately trigger a change of government because the upper house lacks the power to file a no-confidence motion against a leader. However, Ishiba could now face calls from within the LDP to resign or to find another coalition partner.
Polling stations opened nationwide at 7am on Sunday (22:00 GMT, Saturday) and voted continued until 8pm (11:00 GMT, Sunday) in most places, according to NHK.
The rising cost of living, especially for the staple food of rice, is a key issue for many voters, with population decline and foreign policy also on the agenda, NHK reported.
Opinion polls earlier also suggested smaller opposition parties pushing for tax cuts and increased public spending were set to gain.
These parties include right-wing Sanseito, which has promised to curb immigration, oppose foreign capital inflows and reverse gender equality moves. The exit poll projected the party has made strong gains.
“I am attending graduate school, but there are no Japanese [people] around me. All of them are foreigners,” said Yu Nagai, a 25-year-old student who said he voted for Sanseito.
“When I look at the way compensation and money are spent on foreigners, I think that Japanese people are a bit disrespected,” Nagai told the Reuters news agency.
Other voters, meanwhile, voiced concern about escalating xenophobia.
Yuko Tsuji, a 43-year-old consultant, who came to a polling station inside a downtown Tokyo gymnasium with her husband, said they support the LDP for stability and unity and voted “for candidates who won’t fuel division”.
“If the ruling party doesn’t govern properly, the conservative base will drift toward extremes. So I voted with the hope that the ruling party would tighten things up,” she told The Associated Press news agency.
Self-employed Daiichi Nasu, 57, said he hopes for a change towards a more inclusive and diverse society, with more open immigration and gender policies such as allowing married couples to keep separate surnames. “That’s why I voted for the CDPJ,” he said, referring to the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. “I want to see progress on those fronts.”
More than 20 percent of registered voters, some 21 million people, voted early, significantly more than three years ago, NHK reported.
Ishiba, 68, a self-avowed defence “geek” and train enthusiast, became prime minister on his fifth attempt last September before immediately calling snap elections for late October.
Those polls marked a significant defeat for the new prime minister’s ruling coalition, which won just 209 seats in the lower house of parliament, down from the 279 it previously held.
In April, Ishiba announced emergency economic measures to alleviate any impact on industries and households affected by new tariffs imposed by the United States on Japanese exports.
The country is still frantically seeking to secure a reprieve from US President Donald Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs before a new August 1 deadline touted by Washington.
Ishiba’s centre-right LDP has governed Japan almost continuously since 1955, albeit with frequent changes of leader.
He is the third prime minister to lead the country since former leader Shinzo Abe resigned in September 2020.
Abe was assassinated two years later, leading to revelations and public outrage about ties between the former prime minister, his LDP and the Unification Church.
