Snap election favors Takaichi's coalition

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's ruling coalition appeared to have secured a two-thirds majority in Sunday's lower house election, according to media estimates.

Voting began at 7 am and ended at 8 pm, with results being released throughout the evening and the final tally expected in the early hours of Monday. More than 1,200 candidates competed for 465 seats in the House of Representatives, the powerful lower chamber of parliament.

A total of 465 seats were at stake, with 233 required for a majority. Of these, 289 are filled through single-member districts, while the remaining 176 are allocated by proportional representation across 11 regional blocs.

Before the election, the ruling coalition held 232 seats in the lower house — 198 for Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party and 34 for the Japan Innovation Party. A gain of just one seat would give the bloc a majority, the minimum needed for Takaichi to remain in office at the special session of parliament to be convened after the election.

Although the term for lower house members is four years, Takaichi dissolved the chamber last month, only about 15 months after the previous election.

Calling an election in February, when heavy snowfall is common in parts of the country and many school entrance exams are scheduled, is unusual. The 16-day period between the dissolution of parliament and election day is also the shortest in the postwar era.

The decision to call the snap election has drawn criticism, as it is expected to delay parliamentary passage of the initial budget for fiscal year 2026, which had originally been scheduled by the end of March, ahead of the April start of fiscal 2027.

Takaichi has said the coalition's goal is to secure a simple majority. Last month, she said she would resign as prime minister if the coalition failed to win a majority.

For the ruling bloc, 233 seats would secure a simple majority needed to pass legislation. With 243 seats, it would control half of the members of all parliamentary standing committees and all committee chair posts.

An "absolute stable majority" of 261 seats would give it control of all committees. Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority in both houses.

However, even if the coalition secures a majority in the lower house, its minority status in the upper chamber will remain unchanged.

The Liberal Democratic Party suffered defeats in both the 2024 lower house election and the July 2025 upper house election, leaving Takaichi's Cabinet, formed in October, as a minority government in both chambers.

Sunday's vote was the first general election for the new Centrist Reform Alliance of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party and Komeito, a former coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party.

According to an NHK exit poll, the alliance is projected to win between 37 and 91 seats, a sharp drop from its pre-election total of 167 seats.

The anti-immigration Sanseito party was projected to have increased its seats from two to between five and 14, NHK said.

Rising prices

Takaichi, 64, has defied pessimists to be a hit with voters, especially young ones, but she will have to deliver on the economy.

"With prices rising like this, what matters most to me is what policies they'll adopt to deal with inflation,"Chika Sakamoto, 50, told Agence France-Presse at a voting station in a snowy Tokyo on Sunday.

"Prices for just about everything are really going up, but incomes aren't rising much, so our disposable income is shrinking," she said.

Regarding worries about the public finances of Asia's No 2 economy, Takaichi followed up a $135 billion stimulus package aimed at easing the pain of inflation — a big cause of voter discontent — with a campaign promise to suspend a consumption tax on food.

Japan's debt is more than twice the size of the entire economy, and in recent weeks, yields on long-dated bonds have hit record highs, causing jitters worldwide.

"Various parties are proposing policies like abolishing the consumption tax," voter Taku Sakamoto, 49, told AFP.

"While that might be fine for now, I'm very worried about whether such measures are truly responsible for the generations that come after us," he said.

"My biggest concern is not just the present, but what will become of Japan going forward."

Agencies contributed to this story.