The once-dominant Liberal Democratic Party is poised to return to power for the first time in three years following a landslide victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections. But its celebrations are unlikely to last long, as Japan's problems have increased since its last stint in power.
The LDP, which had 118 seats before the elections, and a possible junior coalition partner, New Komeito, were projected to have won more than two-thirds of the seats in the powerful lower house. LDP leader Shinzo Abe, who is on course to become the country's seventh prime minister in six years, "will have to immediately work on the country's economic problems and reconstruction efforts in north-eastern Japan," devastated by last year's earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo-based political analyst Minoru Morita said.
"If Abe fails to address them, voters would punish the LDP in the upper house elections in July," Morita said. When Abe last took the premiership, in September 2006, his cabinet gradually lost popularity due to a string of scandals and gaffes by his ministers. Under Abe, the LDP suffered a crushing defeat in the 2007 upper house election, losing control of the chamber for the first time in the party's history. Then, Abe stepped down abruptly for health reasons about two months later.
Abe does not want a repeat.Japan is in recession, with the economy having shrunk in the April-to-June and July-to-September quarters. Falling exports, the yen's rise, a global economic downtown and mounting tensions with China over a territorial spat have all added to the problems.
Abe has vowed to immediately work on economic stimulus, calling for the Bank of Japan to take additional monetary-easing steps. Critics say, however, that Abe has struggled to come up with solutions to the longstanding problems of huge public debt, slow job creation and unstable employment, especially for young people.
The ratio of temporary and part-time workers in the labour force hit a record high of 35 per cent last year. About half of people in their 20s are without full-time jobs and many need more than one job due to lower wages, labour groups said. "Young people cannot get married without stable employment," says Shingo Yamada, a leader of Tokyo Young Contingent Workers' Union.
He said such underemployment problems have aggravated Japan's shrinking birth rate. Critics say the LDP and the DPJ, along with the media, have also downplayed questions about nuclear power, even though they have to deal with future energy problems and issues of restarting idled reactors.
A majority of the public believes that Japan should phase out nuclear power in the wake of the country's worst atomic disaster, at Fukushima in 2011. So, if Abe wants to restart idled nuclear reactors, he is expected to face enormous opposition. Under more than a half-century of almost unbroken rule by the LDP, the party saw the building of Japan's 54 nuclear power reactors in the quake-prone country.
Chieko Shiina, a leader of the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation, said she was disappointed with the LDP's return to power. "But I expect anti-nuclear activists to be more vocal than ever before and pressure the government to phase out nuclear power," she said.