Well Japan’s snap election is coming up. Looks like the LDP might finally lose power for once. Should be interesting to see how it turns out considering the US presidential election is roughly at the same time.
Just for context, the LPD has controlled Japanese politics since the end of World War II. They only lost power once during that time period, and it was only for a few months.
But what does this mean? Who the hell are the LPD? How different are their opponents?
1 Like
The Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP was established in the 1950s after the merger of two other Japanese political parties both of which were led by surviving members of the old pre WWII diet (what the Japanese call a congress). It quickly developed into the dominant political party through both honorable and less than honorable means. They are generally right leaning under the Japanese version of the political divide.
Well the LDP lost big. But the opposing powers didn’t take enough seats to dominate the lower Diet. So there’s going to be a series of weird compromises and weird alliances creep up to form a coalition government it looks like.
Ok, you said they were the liberal democratic party, but called them right leaning. Are those that won more left leaning?
Nobody really won in this election. No party even reached 200 seats, so forming a coalition will be a mess.
The biggest gainer was the Constitutional Democratic Party, considered to be center/left and is somewhat similar to the more moderate elements of the United States Democratic Party.
1 Like
Seems like a lot of this is the people making their displeasure with the LDP’s scandals well known again.
