The surging popularity of new, right-wing political parties that handed Japan’s long-governing Liberal Democratic Party a humiliating election defeat is a sign of a growing generational gap, as younger voters embrace calls for lower taxes, restrictions on immigration and a break with the political status quo.
The defeat, which rendered the Liberal Democrats a minority in both houses of the Diet, the country’s Parliament, could herald the end of an era for the broad-tent conservative group that has been the country’s dominant political force for 70 years. But while the party has faced would-be usurpers before, this time was different, because the challengers came from the nationalist right, which the Liberal Democrats had long controlled.
The biggest winners on Sunday were two, far-right parties that did not exist five years ago. While Japan in the past has seen its share of flash-in-the-pan, anti-establishment upstarts, the Democratic Party of the People and the more extreme Sanseito party seemed to make much larger inroads among younger voters, who were drawn by their pledges to lift stagnant wages, reduce the number of foreign workers and break the grip that older generations of voters have held on politics.
“The populists appeals have found support among younger voters whose income has not grown or who feel uncomfortable seeing more foreigners,” said Harumi Arima, an independent political analyst. “Their disenchantment with the L.D.P. has spread online, outside traditional media.”
The gains of the right-wing parties have led many in Japan to wonder if the global wave of right-wing anti-establishment political movements had finally reached their shores. After years of seeming insulated from outside political forces, many Japanese voters, particularly in its younger generations, finally have had enough of what they regard as a political order dominated by corporate and political vested interests and the legions of retirees
However, the Liberal Democrats have weathered outpourings of voter discontent before, often by borrowing the policy ideas of their rivals, and thus stealing their thunder. And this time around may be no different, many analysts say. The new nationalist parties differ from anti-establishment groups overseas, like Donald J. Trump’s “America First” movement, with their focus on generational discontents rooted in Japan’s domestic political and economic changes.
The new nationalist parties have warned of unrestrained immigration and what they describe as excessive gender equality, but analysts say they have succeeded in large part because they tapped into the frustrations of working-age people living in a rapidly graying society.
The new parties have succeeded by giving voice to younger voters who feel they are burdened with taxes to pay for the retirement of their parents’ generation, while policies protecting special interests block them from more entrepreneurial efforts to improve their lives.
For this reason, many analysts say Sunday’s parliamentary election results have left a new question hanging over Japan’s political landscape: Do these new parties represent a short-lived protest vote, or a more long-lasting political realignment driven by demographic pressures and a frustration with a leadership class seen as out of touch with younger voters?
“Younger voters are looking for change agents at a time when the ripples from MAGA are spreading around the world,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor of modern Japanese politics and history at Temple University’s Tokyo campus. “But it takes more than a protest vote to become a national movement.”
In the case of Sanseito, the Make America Great Again movement of President Trump has been a direct influence. The party’s founder, Sohei Kamiya, a 47-year-old former Japanese army reservist who was once a member of the Liberal Democrats, has said he would build a national network of supporters committed to the anti-immigration agenda that he calls “Japanese First.”
On Sunday, exit polls showed a clear generation gap. Among men and women under the age of 40, half reported voting for the two nationalist parties, according to a poll by Kyodo News. Another poll also found strong support among members of the so-called Ice Age generation, who entered the job market in the 1990s and early 2000s, when a stagnant economy offered only limited opportunities.
Younger voters rejected not only the Liberal Democrats but also the biggest established liberal opposition group, the Constitutional Democratic Party, which has also backed policies popular with older voters. Among men and women over 60, the voting preferences flipped, with half casting their ballots for the two main established parties, according to the same exit poll.
But while the generational fissures may be here to stay, Mr. Arima and other political analysts expressed doubt that the new anti-establishment parties would continue to hold appeal.
Their emergence, the analysts said, was made possible by changes within the Liberal Democrats, who had shifted toward a more moderate stance after the 2022 assassination of the party’s most powerful leader in modern times, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
While right-wing sentiment took root early in Japan, with the spread of the so-called Net-Right on social media during the 2000s, it failed to grow into its own movement. Instead it gave its support to Mr. Abe, who dominated Japan’s political right while he served as the party’s and Japan’s leader from 2012 to 2020.
“During the Abe era, the L.D.P. tamed and absorbed the far right,” Sayaka Oki, a professor of history at the University of Tokyo, told the Asahi Shimbun.
While his death opened the way for Mr. Kamiya of Sanseito and others to emerge, the Liberal Democrats could try to reclaim that space by moving back to the right, analysts say. One way this could happen might be if a member of the party’s right-wing replaced Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
For now, Mr. Ishiba appears intent on not letting that happen. In a news conference on Monday that was televised live nationally, he admitted that his party had suffered a historic defeat but pledged to stay on as prime minister, defying calls from within his party to step down.
Mr. Ishiba also promised to identify and address the sources of discontent and to win back disaffected voters. “The L.D.P. is a broad-based national party, so we have always sought policies by listening to the opinions and requests of various people,” Mr. Ishiba said.
In stating his intention to remain prime minister, Mr. Ishiba cited a host of urgent issues that Japan needed to face right away. At the top of the list was the ongoing negotiations over tariffs threatened by President Trump, which have been deadlocked for months.
Some analysts said that any effort to replace Mr. Ishiba could also make it difficult for Japan to follow through on promises like one to double spending on national security. A change in leadership might lead Japan back into the political stasis of a decade ago, when a revolving door of prime ministers could get little done.
“During the Abe administration, the U.S. got used to a new Japan that could get stuff done,” said Jeffrey W. Hornung, an expert on Japan at the RAND research group in Washington. “Does an election defeat drag Japan back into its old norm of paralysis?”
Hisako Ueno and Kiuko Notoya contributed reporting from Tokyo.
Martin Fackler is the acting Tokyo bureau chief for The Times.
The post In Japan, Anti-Establishment Parties Resonate With the Young appeared first on New York Times.
