Abe sets modest target for Upper House Election

July 4, 2019

Tokyo--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set a modest target of winning 53 seats for the ruling camp in the July 21 House of Councillors election, whose official campaign period started Thursday.

Meanwhile, key members of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party back higher targets for the election for the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament, giving flexibility to its win-or-lose bar.

In the country's Upper House elections, half of all seats are contested every three years. This time, 124 seats are up for grabs, increasing three from the previous election in 2016 after last year's election law revision to boost the Upper House's seats.

Abe, the LDP's president, says that his target is to secure an Upper House majority by the LDP-Komeito coalition, including uncontested seats. To achieve this, the ruling bloc needs to win at least 53 seats.

Meanwhile, senior lawmakers in the camp say the target should be 63 seats, or a majority of all contested seats.

This, however, would be far from enough for a two-thirds majority in the chamber, the minimum required to propose a constitutional revision, which Abe is eager to achieve.

To reach the level, the ruling camp need cooperation from other forces favoring the amendment. If the combined forces win a total of 86 seats, they will hold two-thirds of all Upper House seats, which will increase to 245. This looks hard to attain.

On Tuesday, Abe had meetings with LDP Election Strategy Committee Chairman Akira Amari and Executive Acting Secretary-General Koichi Hagiuda, deciding to visit during the campaign period single-seat constituencies considered crucial to the overall election performance.

In the upper chamber, the number of seats held by the LDP and Komeito that are not contested this time stands at 56 and 14, respectively.

The LDP will attain an upper chamber majority of 123 seats on its own if it wins 67 seats, the same as the number of contested seats that the party currently holds.

If Komeito obtains 13 seats as it wishes, Abe's target of an Upper House majority by the ruling camp will be reached even if the LDP sees a sharp decrease to 40 seats, only slightly better than its crushing defeats in the 1989 and 2007 elections.

Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the LDP, favors a target of 63 seats. Sharing the view, Hagiuda told reporters Tuesday, "We aim to garner a majority of the contested seats."

Meanwhile, Amari hopes that the ruling bloc will secure a stable majority in the Upper House. This will be attained if the coalition reaches a total of 129 contested and uncontested seats, according to the chamber's secretariat.

The LDP believes that presenting various target numbers will leave its election results "open to any interpretation," a senior lawmaker said.

The LDP is apparently taking precautions, because it is unlikely to maintain the number of seats secured in the 2013 election, in which the party scored a landslide victory.

At present, the ruling bloc and other forces considered positive about a constitutional revision, including Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), together hold two-thirds of the Upper House seats.

Maintaining a two-thirds majority is just a wish, an LDP executive said, recognizing difficulty reaching the level. "We don't mean to forcibly proceed with a constitutional revision," the official added.

On Tuesday, Kiyomi Tsujimoto, Diet affairs chief of the major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, expressed her wish to create a divided parliament by making the ruling camp lose its Upper House majority.

But it is highly unlikely that the ruling bloc will miss Abe's modest target of 53 seats. CDPJ leader Yukio Edano only said, "We aim to get all (our candidates) elected." Jiji Press