[arista]

[Japanese elections are normally steady
and boring affairs.

This snap election was neither.

The dramatic vote follows a political funding
corruption scandal, revealed last year,
which implicated senior lawmakers from
the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
and cabinet members,
tarnishing the party’s image
and angering the public.
The electorate made that anger felt in this election
and sent a strong message to the LDP,
punishing it at the ballot box.
According to best estimates, the LDP, which has
been in power almost continuously since 1955,
has lost its single party majority in the
country’s powerful lower house.

LDP also lost its majority as a governing
coalition. Its junior coalition partner
Komeito lost several of its seats,
including that of its chief, as well,
meaning that even with its partner,
the LDP is still unable to achieve
the 233 seats it needs for a majority.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba made a
political gamble, and it backfired.

He and the LDP underestimated the
extent of people’s anger and
more crucially their willingness to act on it.

But this was the perfect storm - a corruption
scandal that saw dozens of the
ruling party's lawmakers investigated
for pocketing millions of dollars
in proceeds from political fundraising events,
while Japanese households
struggle with inflation, high prices,
stagnant wages and a sluggish economy.]


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2nn16wrk2o