Popular: Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.Image: keystone
Japan’s ruling party, led by the staunchly national conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, has achieved the biggest election victory in its history.
02/09/2026, 01:5502/09/2026, 01:58
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was the first party since the Second World War to win more than two-thirds of the 465 seats in the powerful parliamentary chamber in the lower house election, as Japanese media reported. The stunning victory gives right-wing politician Takaichi enormous power. As the first woman to head the government, she has only been in office since the end of October.
By becoming the first party in postwar Japan to exceed a two-thirds majority of 310 seats, the LDP can now advance constitutional changes and pass laws even if they are rejected by the upper house. In the second chamber of parliament, the governing coalition made up of the LDP and the neoliberal Ishin party remains in the minority.
The LDP, which has ruled almost uninterruptedly since 1955, had lost its majority in the lower and upper houses due to scandals in the previous elections. Supported by Ishin, she recently only ruled with a wafer-thin majority. She owes her outstanding election victory to Takaichi’s high popularity.
Head of government aims for constitutional reform
Takaichi’s desired revision of pacifism Article 9 of the constitution, which has remained unchanged since 1947 and which imposes security policy restrictions on Japan, is now becoming more realistic. In the article, Japan “forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”
As a security policy hardliner, Takaichi advocates closer relations with the protecting power, the USA. She also wants to expand the country’s armed forces in order to create a counterweight to China’s desire for power in Asia. (sda/dpa)