The atmosphere in the nation's political circles appears to have radically changed after the Liberal Democratic Party's stunning defeat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election. The popular approval ratings of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet continue to decline rapidly, hitting the 30 percent range and then falling further in several media polls taken in mid-July.

A look at the 2016 edition of a cross-national survey called Asia Barometer (asianbarometer.org/survey/meaning-of-democracy) shows an interesting feature of Japanese people's views on democracy. In a question as to what democracy means to the pollees — in which they were asked to choose their answers from 1) freedom; 2) norms and procedures; 3) social fairness; and 4) good governance — more than 40 percent of Japanese respondents picked good governance, in sharp contrast with pollees in other countries. It is believed that since freedom and norms are being established in Japan, people here consider clean, accurate and efficient governance as the concrete meaning of democracy.

Given the views of Japanese voters on democracy, the current plight of the Abe administration seems quite serious. Allegations that favor was inappropriately provided to Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Gakuen, as well as the cover-up and destruction of information by the Finance Ministry and other members of the bureaucracy, have led to public distrust in the administration.