Japanese Premier Sanae Takaichi’s party set to win majority in risky snap election: exit polls

SEOUL, South Korea — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s conservative political party was projected to win the majority of seats in the Diet’s lower house in a snap election that risked her recently gained leadership of the national government, exit polls indicated Sunday.

Her Liberal Democratic Party was set to win 274 to 328 of the lower house’s 465 seats, easily exceeding the 233 margin to secure the majority, according to exit polls quoted by state broadcaster NHK. When votes for the LDP’s coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, are counted, the number of seats may rise to 302-366.

The election results are likely to be well received in Washington, given the burgeoning relationship between Ms. Takaichi and President Trump.

They may be less well received in Beijing, which was incensed by Ms. Takaichi’s off-the-cuff comments in November, when she said Japanese forces would come to the defense of Taiwan. Communist China claims the democratically run island as its province.

Ms. Takaichi took over the premiership in October as an internal LDP pick after party kingmakers lost faith in her predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, who hailed from the party’s liberal wing.

“Takaichi and the LDP were frustrated by the need to debate and compromise in order to pass legislation; they want an absolute majority,” said Scott Foster, a Tokyo-based analyst with LightStream Research. “She called the election because her personal support was about 75%.”

Swallowing risk, Ms. Takaichi called a snap general election in January. She did not have to: She could have sat out Mr. Ishiba’s term. The win appears to grant her a sweeping mandate.

Yet her strategy mirrored that of her predecessor.

Like Ms. Takaichi, Mr. Ishiba rose to power as a result of internal party politicking, not public plebiscite. But Mr. Ishiba lost the LDP’s majority via general election. Ms. Takaichi has restored the party’s comfortable majority.

The odds had been stacked against her.

Komeito, a Buddhist party that had operated in coalition with the LDP for a quarter century, ditched the partnership in October in apparent disapproval of Ms. Takaichi’s rightist leanings.

However, she secured a new coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, a conservative machine based in Japan’s second city of Osaka.

In the run-up to Sunday’s election, Ms. Takaichi, whose personal approval ratings were in the 70%-75% range, won an outspoken endorsement from Mr. Trump.

He posted on Truth Social: “It is my Honor to give a Complete and Total Endorsement of her, and what her highly respected Coalition is representing. SHE WILL NOT LET THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN DOWN!”

Ms. Takaichi does not just enthuse Mr. Trump. She also pleases Japanese youth.

Unlike some former leaders, who hail from political dynasties, Ms. Takaichi is — like her benchmark, British Premier Margaret Thatcher — a self-made member of the lower middle class.

Hard-working but lively, photogenic and flashing a trademark grin, her public popularity owes much to the fact her contrast with gray, be-suited, male elites.

American analysts in Tokyo are taking notice.

“In large part, Japanese politics is older men who are nondescript — there is no ‘Mr. Charisma’ and very few real personalities — so she’s a breath of fresh air,” said Lance Gatling, principal of Tokyo-based consultancy Nexial Research.

 “She was a heavy-metal drummer and she rode motorcycles, but she is also a Japanese traditionalist,” he said. “She is articulate, and she is having fun — just look at her!”

In a well-crafted media play in January, she invited visiting South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to drum with her to a K-pop hit. And she has astutely leveraged Japan’s focus on “kawai” — “cuteness” or “lovability.”

“She has become a political Hello Kitty, with keychains and other ‘Sanae’ goods,” said Mr. Foster. “Diet members have stopped falling asleep in their seats.”

Still, new-breed LDP lawmakers may not offer Ms. Takaichi quite what she sought.

“Her gamble was vindicated but maybe not in a direction she intended, if it was to make the party more right-wing,” said Haruko Satoh a professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. “The new and younger candidates won’t play along old faction ideological lines … this win may have rejuvenated the LDP to a party that represents a wider spectrum of society.”

’Anger is going in all directions’

Ms. Takaichi is seen as inheriting the mantle of the late Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier. During his first term, Mr. Trump arguably enjoyed closer ties with Abe than any other leader.

Abe pioneered the phrase “Indo-Pacific” — subsequently adopted in the U.S. — and spearheaded the formation of the “Quad Security Dialog,” incorporating Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.

He finessed a tricky reinterpretation of Japan’s pacifist constitution in 2014-2015, enabling “collective defense.”

Abe was shot dead in 2022 by an assassin aggrieved by his ties to the Unification Church, which, due to its long-standing anti-communist stance, developed ties with LDP politicians.

Mr. Trump’s relationship with Abe appeared to reappear during his first encounter with Ms. Takaichi, in Tokyo last October. The two will next meet at a White House summit in March.

No summit is likely soon between her and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In November, she told the Diet that a Taiwan security contingency would be existential for Japan. That situation would enable the activation of Japan’s Self-Defense Force, infuriating Beijing.

China retaliated across multiple domains.

It opened fire with diplomatic and media insults, then halted Japanese seafood imports and the export of dual-use goods to Japan. It also launched an academic-media offensive questioning Tokyo’s administration of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, which dominate northeastern naval approaches to Taiwan.

Beijing’s fire and fury may have backfired.

“I think we are living in an age when everyone is pissed off with China,” said a Japanese academic who requested anonymity, as he is consulting to government. “In Japan, anger is going in all directions.”

He noted that while some are questioning why Takaichi made her comment — widely known as Tokyo’s position, but never publicly stated prior by a sitting premier — others blamed the opposition lawmaker for posing the question.

Ms. Takaichi takes a strong stance on security, and will need to find budget to fund upgraded spend on the Self-Defense Forces, which are in the process of obtaining high-tech arms including long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, and a drone-based coast-defense system.  

“Regarding security, she does not need new laws, I think it will be largely about budget,” said the academic. “It could be things such as what the SDF can and cannot do — structural, procedural things.”

She may not need to press for changes to Japan’s constitution. Any such shift requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Diet, as well as a 50%+1 vote in a public referendum. The latter demand, some observers believe, is a near impossibility.

Her mentor’s constitutional reinterpretation may make such steps unnecessary.

“The Peace and Security Law passed in 2015 was fairly extensive, it covered most bases Japan needed to cover,” the academic said. “Though there could be revisions to the three nuclear principles.”

Those are: Japan will neither possess nor manufacture nuclear arms, nor will it allow partners to import them onto Japanese soil.

There are rumbles in some Japanese circles on changes to the third principle, by permitting “nuclear sharing.”

With the yen weak, Japan is facing its largest-ever influx of tourists. Crimes by foreign “marriage migrants,” including money laundering, are also in the national spotlight.

Amid these trends, Ms. Takaichi has taken a populist hard line on immigration.

It is widely believed that this stance has helped her and the LDP win back voters from the hard-right party Sanseito, seen as a rising force last year.