Japan's ruling party loses all 3 seats in by-elections

For the LDP, these are bye-elections

Meanwhile the big boss Kishida will be romping around the world with other LDP members during GW using our tax money. Vote 'em all out at every level.

Could this be an end to the LDP, finally? We can but hope.

Good for them. Down with the LDP!!!

Well done Shimane! Other prefecture will follow!

Well done,Shimane.

I bet Abe's old prefecture won't vote out the LDP though.

Kishida will probably be forced to call a snap election to prove his mandate by LDP. There's a leadership race slated for September and Kishida knows he will lose if he cannot prove his mandate, so he basically has no choice.

And I believe the LDP will lose decisively. It seems the population is very sensitive about political "stability" and they are merciless when punishing a party in turmoil, just as the LDP-party we now see.

But there is no opposition. LDP will survive this because they are the only party in a position to govern, sadly.

meanwhile yes, Kishida is getting more stamps in his passport, but he does seem to be kicking some goals with US. I want to write him off but he has inherited a 5h!tshow seemingly through no fault of his own.

Many people keep saying that the opposition isn't really an alternative so why vote for them, but I hope come next election people give them a try. There is a kind of correlation between the last CDP government and the Biden government. The CDP, then the DPJ had to deal with the terrible Great East Japan triple disaster. And while they made some mistakes, I feel it wouldn't have mattered who was in power. Same with Biden and covid, he took over after Trump made a dogs breakfast of dealing with the pandemic, and has really suffered because of it. Still inflation and supply chain shortages remain.

Let's hope that people will stop supporting the corrupt LPD that only favors large corporations and give the opposition another try.

Most people assume politicians are corrupt and expect it. They enjoy seeing them caught but aren't necessarily motivated to vote by it.

If Japan has a weak Yen, most things will have risen in price, and retail inflation will be way higher than the tiny official stat. So this may well be more about inflation. If it is, a few token political punishments won't bring people round.

I can't imagine any leader could lead a nation with only 20% support !? unless he or she is a Dictator, or a swindler.

Does this mean that we finally have a serious opposition party? If so, they deserve all our support.

Good news, should make them losing more seats for a better Japan. LDP were traitors, they were funded by Unification Church !

For the LDP, these are bye-elections

I pray for "bye-bye" elections and the day when the party's over for the LDP. Japan desperately needs a change of course that this bunch of corrupt politicians are incapable of bringing.

WoodyLeeToday  08:11 am JST

I can't imagine any leader could lead a nation with only 20% support !? unless he or she is a Dictator, or a swindler.

It can happen when you have low voter turn-out, a first-past-the-post election system which means you don't need a majority of the votes to win and numerous small, underfunded opposition parties instead of one main challenger.

The hardest thing for an incoming non LDP government will be the LDP cronies that have been planted in the public service. The DPJs main problem with governing during its term was dealing with these recalcitrant cronies who failed to enact legislation passed by the DPJ. They needed to sack the lot of them!

Let's hope they have learned their lesson this time round!

Few points

The apathy of the Japanese voter.

On NHK they were saying the voter turnout in Nagasaki was fifteen percent by five pm.

Shocking.

This head in the sand outlook, the shoganai syndrome is appalling.

Japan is heading for the rocks in nautical speak.

Years ago a lot of us had high hopes when the LDP were kicked out, but bickering and incompetence brought the new government down so fast.

The amount of structural problems in Japan is astounding and you never ever here Japanese people discussing it.

Maybe their schooling.

Never question, never form an opinion just blindly follow.

That worked in the good times.

Not any more

Norimasa Nishikori from LDP, said her victory in Shimane, known as a “conservative kingdom,” sent a “big message” to Kishida.

“I believe the voters' anger over LDP's slush funds problem and the lack of improvement in daily lives in the prefecture became support for me," she said.

oh really?

riveting news

I wonder How long did it take for her to come up with that deduction?

forget the elections, how are Kishida, Aso and the rest of his clowns NOT in prison for all of the crap

they are doing? Get rid of all of them!

The Buddha says: "nothing is permanent. Everything changes."

Then, he added: "there is one exception - the Liberal Democratic Party's control of Japanese politics."

So, don't look for basic change despite all the noise about "political ethics." The apathetic voters will just forget about the scandals and vote the LDP back into power in the next general election.

Kishida will be out: will he be replaced by Sanae Takaichi, who could become Japan's first female prime minister? (Ugh!).

The yen is in freefall this morning. Just passed 160 to the dollar. Kishida thinks that turning the country into a giant theme park will solve its problems. The inbound tourists certainly love the declining yen. But what about the people who actually live here?

Donald SeekinsToday  11:34 am JST

So, don't look for basic change despite all the noise about "political ethics." The apathetic voters will just forget about the scandals and vote the LDP back into power in the next general election.

It can't all be put down to voter apathy; the inertia in Japanese politics has a lot to do with it. It's extremely hard to change anything while running for office is so expensive, because they LDP has lots of money and it benefits them to resist change. Of course voters get pathetic when a ruling party keeps winning because they can stop the opposition parties from being able to challenge them.

One problem is that they give the figure for voting up to say 5 pm but they don't count postal votes, continually rising as a proportion of total votes. In the case of Nagasaki this time though there really was a collapse in the number of votes. Only 34.45% of voters voted, 25.48% less than last time!

Watch all those LDP voters reappear at general election time, I'm afraid.