TOKYO, Feb 9 (TASS/APP/DNA):Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, won a landslide victory in the February 8 elections, winning two-thirds of the seats in the key lower house of parliament and demonstrating the best result since its founding in 1955, according to the final data of the regional election commissions.
The LDP won 316 mandates, securing a constitutional majority, which opens the way in the future to changing the basic law, which both it and the head of the government have long advocated. It will also allow the ruling bloc to adopt any laws, ignoring the decisions of the upper house, where it currently does not have a majority. LDP’s ally in the ruling coalition, the Japan Renewal Party, will take 36 seats.
The opposition suffered a crushing defeat. The country’s main opposition party, the Centrist Reform Alliance, won only 28 mandates compared to 172 before the elections. The Japanese Communist Party got four seats, the left-liberal Reiwa Shinsengumi and the Tax Cuts Japan got one each.
The ultraconservative Sanseito, which has been repeatedly accused of racism and xenophobia, showed a very good result, increasing the number of its mandates from three to 15. Team Mirai, which was created just nine months ago and actively advocates the development of artificial intelligence technologies, also demonstrated excellent results by occupying nine seats in the lower house of parliament.
The turnout in the elections was 56.26%, which is 2.42 percentage points higher than in 2024. Fewer people came on the day of the vote than in 2024, but the number of people who voted early reached a record high of 27 million, which is 26.1% of all voters. In two years, the number of early voters has increased by almost six million.
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