In Sunday's Upper House election, Japanese voters expressed their dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, which has been embroiled in a pension-records fiasco, political-funds scandals and gaffes by Cabinet ministers. The votes have made the opposition Democratic Party of Japan the No. 1 party in the Upper House. The massive defeat will make it much more difficult for the ruling coalition to pass bills in the Diet and will force it to compromise with the opposition on important issues. Although Mr. Abe has declared that he will not step down, it is clear that rough times await him.
The DPJ's election victory is a political boon to its leader Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, who vowed to "stake his political life on the Upper House election." His party's campaign motto was "The people's life should be the No. 1 matter." In his campaign, Mr. Ozawa claimed that under the ruling coalition's program emphasizing "reform and economic growth," only the strong have survived, and the weak and the rural regions have been discarded, causing serious social divides. Mr. Ozawa's observations and proposals struck the right note with many voters. Remarkably, his party won an overwhelming victory in the one-seat constituencies in rural and depopulated areas, a traditionally LDP stronghold. Mr. Abe tried to sell economic growth to the voters, but the election results underline a need for him to rethink his basic approach.
In its campaign, the DPJ proposed providing each child with an allowance of 26,000 yen a month until he or she graduates from middle school, and paying farmers the difference between the production costs of main crops and their market prices so that small farmers can continue to work in agriculture. The party also proposed integrating various pension schemes and using all the revenues from the consumption tax to pay the basic portion of the pensions.