The Japanese leader's election gambit, fueled by the power of her personality and some unlikely help from young voters consumed by “Sanamania,” appears to have paid off.

The Japanese leader’s election gambit, fueled by the power of her personality and some unlikely help from young voters consumed by “Sanamania,” appears to have paid off.

Japan’s conservative prime minister Sanae Takaichi has won a landslide victory after she gambled on a high-stakes snap election.

Takaichi, who took office in October after being elected leader of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), surpassed the 310 seats needed for a supermajority in the 465-seat lower house, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported from the official election count on Sunday evening. The supermajority allows her ruling coalition to override the upper house, where it lacks a majority.

An NHK exit poll as voting ended earlier on Sunday projected the LDP would win between 274 and 326 seats. The party and its coalition partner Ishin were projected to win a combined 302-366 seats, as voters turned out amid freezing temperatures in a rare winter election.

  • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
    83·
    12 hours ago

    Hmm, I just realized that I (an American living in New Zealand) have no idea what Japanese politics are like. To Wikipedia!

    Takaichi has been described as holding hard-line conservative and Japanese nationalist views,

    uh oh

    citing former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as a role model and deeply influential on her personal political beliefs.

    Uh oh

    Like Thatcher, she is called the “Iron Lady”.

    Uh Oh

    Takaichi is a member of Nippon Kaigi, a far-right ultraconservative organisation

    UH OH

    that argues for a reinterpretation of Japanese history

    RED ALERT

    amongst ultranationalist lines.

    WELP

    Eh, I guess it had to happen to Japan someday. It’s happened everywhere else. Here’s hoping it doesn’t last long and the damage is minimal.

    • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      12 hours ago

      Hey look at it this way, we may finally get our mechs out of this.

      I mean, they may be the last thing you see, but at least we may see them.

    • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
      3·
      9 hours ago

      It more accurately happens like every second or third PM and then things swing to another faction of the LDP (or, historically rarely since WWII ended, another party though the last times that happened they faceplanted pretty quickly and it went back to the LDP)

    • MadPsyentist@lemmy.nzEnglish
      22·
      9 hours ago

      Maybe Japan gets a situation like NZ where the conservitve parties and “the right” like National and Act would probably be left of the USA Democrats on the political spectrum. I can hope right?

      Also reducing all politics to a left right thing is so stupid and probably the worst thing to do for political discourse but… here we are. I blame the murdoch media

      • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.comEnglish
        161·
        8 hours ago

        Unfortunately not. Japan has been very far-right (bordering on jingoistic) for a long time now. The country’s external facade is all cute anime characters and zany fashion… But that was an intentional rebrand (heavily subsidized by the country’s propaganda department) in the wake of WW2 to distance itself from the atrocities they had committed. But internally, the country has remained extremely hardline conservative and xenophobic. And it has only shifted farther right with recent elections.

        • Gathorall@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          7 hours ago

          And after the war USA nudged Japan right with anything they could think of for good measure, to shape it in their own image.

        • lechekaflan@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          7 hours ago

          But internally, the country has remained extremely hardline conservative and xenophobic.

          Yeah, they also get the Mainland Chinese wolf-warriors frothing in the mouth.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        7 hours ago

        To be fair, that is almost exactly why I moved here. Luxon seems like a somewhat worthless lump, but his most extreme position appears to be a bit further left than Elizabeth Warren. And it’s not impossible that he won’t survive the year in his role.

        Also reducing all politics to a left right thing is so stupid and probably the worst thing to do for political discourse

        Absolutely agree. I hate that my first reaction to every conversation has to be “…but are they a fascist?”