Japan’s Sunday elections brought the governing Liberal Democratic Party a supermajority in a major victory for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who had gambled by calling an election shortly after assuming office.
The LDP won 316 of 465 seats in the country’s House of Representatives, up from the 198 it held before the election.
While the LDP has governed Japan for all but six years since its formation 1955, it lost its governing majority in October 2024, leading to the resignation of Shigeru Ishiba as prime minister and party leader the following year.
Following Ishiba’s resignation, Takaichi won the LDP’s leadership contest in an upset. Takaichi is known for her social conservatism and her hawkishness on China.
The LDP’s landslide win gives it over a two-thirds majority in Japan’s lower house, paving the way for a constitutional amendment to Japan’s postwar constitution. Takaichi has announced that she is seeking to amend the constitution to expand the scope of the nation’s self-defense forces.
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