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It was a bombshell: in the snap elections for Japanese parliament on 8 February, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae won 316 of the 465 seats. This gives the governing party, which has recently shifted further to the right, a two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of the National Diet, known as the Shūgiin, enabling it to amend the constitution. An electoral victory on this scale is unprecedented in Japan’s post-war history.
The result is a personal triumph for the prime minister, who has been in office only since October. On 23 January 2026, she unexpectedly dissolved parliament and called a snap election in order to secure a clear mandate in the face of economic uncertainties and international tensions.
Weakened Opposition
Canan Kus has been working in the Asia Department of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation since 2022 and is currently based at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Beijing Office. She holds an MA in East Asian Studies and works on multipolarism and geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific.
The opposition were caught off guard by the snap election. At the time, they were in the process of reorganizing; a new opposition alliance had formed only a few weeks earlier. Suddenly, there were just two weeks between the dissolution of the parliament and election day. It proved impossible to develop a coherent platform in such a short amount of time and to enter the campaign united.
This was precisely Takaichi’s aim in calling the surprise election. Unlike the opposition, she and her party entered the campaign well prepared. She relied on two promises: political stability and the state’s capacity to act. She underscored these with policy announcements that included a stimulus package and relief measures for energy and food costs. In this way, the prime minister — regarded as a protégé of former prime minister Shinzō Abe — succeeded in mobilizing both the LDP’s conservative voter base as well as parts of the younger generation. The stunning electoral victory is therefore due less to broad approval of the LDP than to the exceptionally expedient timing of its leader.
One thing is clear: the election victory significantly reinforces Japan’s rightward shift. In recent weeks, issues of security policy have been brought to the forefront; economic concerns and social conflicts, too, are increasingly framed by politicians as external threats. This, in turn, bolsters the national conservative head of government.
One thing is clear: the election victory significantly reinforces Japan’s rightward shift.
Japan’s tectonic shifts, like those in many other countries, have very tangible roots. Behind the changes in security policy lie primarily social factors. In Japan, this development is particularly evident in the cost of living, for example with the price of rice. Rice is a staple food and represents both food security and economic stability. When the price of rice nearly doubled in 2024, Japanese society reacted with widespread dissatisfaction. In May 2025, the then minister of agriculture, Taku Etō, was forced to step down after stating at a party event that he “never had to buy rice”, since supporters gifted him so much of it that he could even sell it.
The ensuing outrage and Etō’s resignation illustrate how everyday material issues can now trigger political crises. Takaichi’s promise of state control and economic stabilization thus resonated during the campaign with a population currently guided less by political conviction than by the desire for order and reliability. Ultimately, the central focus of this election was the question of who was considered most capable of guaranteeing social security in the context of a world that increasingly seems to be coming apart at the seams.
Foreign Policy About-Face
The impulse to support the candidate who appears most capable of ensuring stability and security also extends to foreign policy and national security. Shortly after assuming office, Takaichi Sanae had already expressed provocative positions on national security policy. For example, she snubbed the country’s large East Asian neighbour China by declaring that Japan would rush to Taiwan’s aid in case the latter needed defending. While her public statement was not a concrete commitment to deploy, it was nevertheless a clear political signal — one directed not only at China, but also at her own fellow citizens. This escalation is part and parcel of Takaichi’s stability narrative and proved effective during the election campaign.
Under Takaichi, Japan’s military budget is set to rise to two percent of GDP as early as this year, earlier than previously planned.
Amidst our current wave of foreign-policy turmoil, the focus on “order” is well suited to attracting support beyond the conservative camp. This is also reflected in developments in defence spending: under Takaichi, Japan’s military budget is set to rise to two percent of GDP as early as this year, earlier than previously planned. Japan is already among the countries with the highest military spending worldwide; according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), it ranked tenth globally in 2024, with defence spending of 55 billion US dollars.
One obstacle to rearmament is Article 9 of the constitution, in which Japan “forever renounce[s] war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes”. Although the pacifist core of the constitution has long been gradually eroded in practice, it still carries strong symbolic and political meaning. Takaichi now seeks to amend Article 9. However, this does not have universal approval within Japanese society. Polls paint a divided picture: while conservative forces are calling for greater self-defence capacities, others remain committed to the pacifist tradition.
Part of this picture is the fact that the national conservative prime minister is taking strides to maintain close ties with the United States, Japan’s traditional protector. This aligns well with US president Donald Trump, who offered effusive congratulations on her election victory.
The outcome of the snap election must also be interpreted against this backdrop. The LDP’s two-thirds majority is the combined result of social insecurity, the opposition’s institutional weakness, and an extremely truncated election campaign, which left little room for political alternatives. Takaichi Sanae used the dissolution of parliament to secure, under advantageous circumstances, a mandate that expands her room for manoeuvre in the long term.
The election victory has firmly consolidated Takaichi’s position. The coming months will show to what extent she will use her newly acquired power to drive Japan further to the right
Translated by Anna Dinwoodie and Hunter Bolin for Gegensatz Translation Collective.
