Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party recorded a historic landslide in weekend snap elections, winning more than a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives and significantly strengthening Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s mandate to pursue her conservative policy agenda, local media reported on Monday.
According to Kyodo News, the LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), captured a combined 354 seats in the 465-member lower house, paving the way for Takaichi to remain in office after assuming the premiership last October.
With the result, the LDP became the first party in postwar Japan to surpass the two-thirds threshold of 310 seats in the House of Representatives.
The supermajority gives the ruling party the power to advance constitutional amendments and pass legislation even if blocked by the House of Councillors, where the governing coalition does not hold a majority.
“We bear an extremely heavy responsibility to focus on steadily delivering on the campaign pledges we have made,” Takaichi said in remarks to state broadcaster NHK.
Opposition parties collectively secured just 111 seats, a sharp decline from the 230 they held in the previous lower house.
The vote proved especially damaging for the newly formed Centrist Reform Alliance, which saw its representation plunge from 167 seats before the election to just 49.
Following the poor showing, alliance co-leaders Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito indicated they may step down in response to the outcome.
The JIP gained only two additional seats, bringing its total to 36, despite running independently of the LDP without coordinated candidate placement.
Meanwhile, the populist Sanseito party, known for its “Japanese First” platform, expanded its presence from two seats to 15, while Team Mirai entered the lower house for the first time with 11 seats.
Voter turnout reached slightly above 56%, roughly two percentage points higher than participation in the previous general election.
A total of about 1,300 candidates competed for the 465 seats, with 289 lawmakers elected from single-member districts and the remaining 176 chosen through proportional representation based on party vote shares across 11 regional blocs.
