In less than two weeks, on Sunday, June 25, Japanese voters will cast their ballots in what will be Japan's last general election of the 20th century. This may well turn out to be the most important Japanese general election since July 18, 1993, which resulted in the inauguration, on Aug. 9 of that year, of the first non-Liberal Democratic Party prime minister in 38 years, Morihiro Hosokawa, and precipitated a series of changes in Japanese politics that brought to an end the so-called 1955 System of one-party rule by the LDP.

The June 25 election can be viewed from several perspectives. First, the results will provide a preview of the Japanese political landscape in the first decade of the 21st century. If the 1980s was a decade of "Japan as economic superpower," contending with the United States for economic hegemony, the 1990s was "the lost decade," during which the Japanese economy stagnated and, in 1997 and 1998, even registered negative GDP growth. Only in fiscal year 1999 did Japan start to recover, registering a 0.5 percent GDP growth rate.

This economic stagnation occurred against a backdrop of turmoil in the political world, accompanied by a proliferation of political parties, fragmentation of political power, and realignment of institutional affiliations by individual politicians. Political scientists predicted that the electoral reforms instituted in 1994 would require several years to demonstrate their intended effect — i.e., greater competition for Diet seats, more emphasis on issues than on personalities, shifting of authority from bureaucrats to politicians, and movement toward the creation of a two-party system. The upcoming election will be a test of whether these predictions are on the way to being realized.