By Tim Kelly
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s coalition looks set to lose its parliamentary majority, exit polls from Sunday’s general election suggest, meaning a possible scramble by parties to form a government.
Following are the main players in any post-election jockeying for power:
LDP
Having ruled for almost all of Japan’s postwar period, Ishiba’s conservative LDP has struggled with voters angry about a months-long political funding scandal.
The party promised to clean up its finances ahead of the election but allowed most of more than 40 lawmakers who failed to record political donations to stand for the party.
The party of Ishiba, who called the election immediately after Fumio Kishida resigned to take responsibility for the scandal, also faces public dissatisfaction over rising prices.
The LDP, which entered the election with 247 seats, is forecast to fall to between 153 and 219 seats, short of the 233 needed for a majority in the lower house.
KOMEITO
The LDP’s longtime coalition partner has helped it keep control of parliament for most of the past two decades, apart from three years when the parties were out of power from 2009.
Affiliated with Japan’s largest lay-Buddhist organisation, Sokka Gakkai, Komeito supports the LDP during campaigning, its vast network providing election volunteers.
In return for its support, Komeito gets the Land Transport and Infrastructure post in the cabinet and is consulted on policy.
Komeito has been less willing than the LDP to step back from the pacifism that has marked Japan since its World War Two loss, including decisions to double military spending, arm the country with longer-range weapons and end rules that limit military exports.
The party, which is defending 32 seats, may have won as many as 35 seats, polls suggest.
CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATS
Japan’s largest opposition group, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the rump of the party that ousted the LDP in 2009, fought this campaign by attacking the LDP over its funding scandal and by promising measures to tackle inflation.
Yoshihiko Noda, prime minister for a year before the LDP returned to power in 2012, became leader of the centre-left party in September.
If the LDP-Komeito coalition cannot cobble together a majority, the CDPJ could try to form a government with other opposition parties.
The party is set to double its 98 seats, NHK forecast.
JAPAN INNOVATION PARTY
The third-largest party in the lower house before the election with 44 seats, the right-wing group led by Donald Trump admirer Nobuyuki Baba is aligned with the LDP on security policy, including increased defence spending and a proposal to revise the country’s war-renouncing constitution.
In the campaign Baba did not rule out the possibility of working with the LDP in a post-election administration.
Originating in the industrial western city of Osaka, the Innovation Party advocates for smaller government and in the lower house election campaign pledged to clean up politics with stricter rules on donations, as well as welfare and education reforms.
The party won as many as 45 seats, NHK forecast.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY FOR THE PEOPLE
Despite coming into the election with just seven seats, the DPP might emerge as a kingmaker.
Formed in 2020 by former Democratic Party lawmakers who declined to join the CDPJ, it advocates cutting Japan’s sales tax and income taxes, and health insurance contributions.
Party leader Yuichiro Tamaki, a former finance ministry bureaucrat, was a senior party during the Democrat-led government from 2009. Before this election, he said he would not go into a coalition with the LDP.
The DPP expanded to as many as 33 seats, LDP forecast.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by William Mallard)
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