The power of surprise: How Takaichi’s snap election delivered a LDP landslide

Japan’s first post-war two-thirds majority was won by avoiding economic debate and overwhelming a fractured opposition.

Peter Chai,Willy Jou

11 February 20264 min read

The gamble of calling a snap election less than halfway through the previous legislative term has paid off handsomely for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, with her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) scoring a landslide victory on 8 February, garnering 316 of 465 seats.

This is the first time since the Second World War any party in Japan has won a two-thirds majority on its own. With a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives (lower house), the LDP can now push through bills rejected in the House of Councillors (upper house) where it lacks a majority.

However, revising the post-war pacifist clauses in Article 9 of the Constitution would require two-thirds approval in both chambers of the Diet, followed by ratification in a national referendum by a simple majority. With the next upper house election not due until 2028, when only half of its members will be elected, revising the Constitution remains institutionally difficult.

While precise explanations for the LDP’s overwhelming win await detailed analysis of voter surveys, it is possible to highlight several factors in terms of what did not happen during the shortest election campaign in post-war history.

Takaichi only took on the top job in October. She moved to dissolve the lower house on 23 January, leaving only 16 days between dissolution and voting day, the shortest interval since the end of the Second World War. This decision was both surprising (including to members of her own party) and unpopular. Polls showed opponents of the snap election call outnumbered supporters.

Economic headwinds did not translate into meaningful gains for the opposition.

The announcement was so rushed that some local electoral authoritiesdid not have enough time to arrange polling stations and send out mandatory notifications to voters. Also, the dissolution meant that next year’s budget could not be passed by the end of the current fiscal year. Yet while voters disapprove of such haste, this did not seem to affect their choice at the ballot box.

Before becoming prime minister, Takaichi indicated support for the idea of temporarily suspending the consumption tax on food items, but retreated from this position after winning the premiership, citing the inconvenience of adjusting cash registers to take the tax rate change into account. At the start of this year’s election campaign, she reverted to her original position (albeit only in the couched language of discussing this at a non-partisan “citizens assembly”).

This pledge, which she described as her dearest wish, was conspicuously absent from her campaign speeches. Takaichi did not seem to push the LDP’s signature economic agenda during the campaign, presumably to avoid market apprehension over rising bond yields and further expansion of Japan’s onerous debt.

Midway through the campaign, Takaichi spoke about the weakness of the Japanese yen as a “major opportunity” for exporters, which was interpreted as favouring further depreciation. She quickly offered an explanation on X, stating that shedoes not support either a strong or weak yen, but not before criticisms that she was ignoring the impact of currency depreciation on higher import costs.

However, voters did not seem to link her statement to rising costs of living, which is consistently shown as their top concern in polls, nor did they seem troubled by her bold yet vague economic statement. This disconnect is striking given persistent inflation. Since 2022, Japan has seen a sustained inflation rate hovering around 3%, a level and duration not observed since the collapse of the asset bubble.

Yet these economic headwinds did not translate into meaningful gains for the opposition. The newly formed Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) between the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito secured only 49 seats, down sharply from its combined pre-election total of 167. Hastily assembled ahead of the snap election, the alliance struggled to present itself as a credible alternative government.

The CRA performed particularly poorly among non-affiliated voters. In the 2024 lower house election, for proportional representation, roughly 29% of non-affiliated voters voted for the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito combined whereas in this election, only about 14% voted for the CRA.

This reflects a “surprise effect”: incumbents gain a structural edge by catching opposition parties unprepared, underscoring constraints on opposition coordination, the supply of qualified candidates, and campaign financing under severe time constraints, a pattern observed in snap elections in Japanese history.

While this is by no means an exhaustive account of the factors explaining the LDP’s historic victory, several nonetheless merit attention. Voters did not punish Takaichi for calling an unpopular snap election, nor did they criticise her for avoiding discussion of proposed adjustments to the consumption tax on the campaign trail. Her remarks on the weakness of the yen were also not widely linked to rising living costs.

Moreover, voters did not hold her accountable for endorsing LDP candidates involved in political slush fund scandals or for showing little interest in addressing the controversial ties between the party and the Unification Church. At the same time, the hastily assembled CRA failed to register as a credible alternative government. Together, these dynamics helped pave the way for what may herald another era of single-party dominance in Japan.

About the authors

Peter Chai

Peter Chai is a Research Associate in the Faculty of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

Willy Jou

Willy Jou is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University. His research areas are attitudes toward democracy, ideology, and voting behaviour.

Topics

Japan