First take on the LDP’s election prospects

MTC has already covered off the importance of the headline support rates from the post-GDP shock Kyodo and Asahi opinion polls now out. A few more should come over the next few days.

In short, they show loss in faith in Abe, but not a catastrophic reduction in support for either the PM or the LDP at this point. If the election was held today, the likely result would be a pretty solid “victory” with the LDP-Komeito coalition easily getting over the 270 seat mark that LDP and Komeito strategists have identified as the minimum acceptable line for a reduction in the coalition’s House of Representatives majority.

Looking deeper into the Asahi poll (jp) certainly reveals enough doubts about Abe’s policy program that give a glimmer of hope for opposition parties that they may be able to push the coalition a bit harder. That is, at least in comparison with when serious discussion of a snap election first arose a few weeks ago.

Monday’s news on the economy does appear to have hurt Abe when compared to a NTV poll taken just two days prior to the announcement of 3rd quarter GDP figures when it was already clear that the consumption tax would be delayed and an election called. In this pre-Monday poll only 32 percent thought Abenomics had failed, 51 percent didn’t think so (66 percent didn’t think Abenomics was progressing according to another question in the same survey). In the post-Monday Asahi survey, while not an exactly equivalent question, we see failure rising above “success” with 39 percent believing Abe having failed, and 30 percent thinking it was a success, with assumedly 31 percent not sure.

62 percent of Asahi respondents are opposed to the election (18 percent agreeing) and 65 percent (25 percent accepting) said they did not accept Abe’s reasoning for calling the election (to go to the people in regards to delaying the consumption tax). In the Kyodo survey, 63.1 percent said they could not fathom the reason for the election, with 30 percent accepting the reasoning. 66 percent of respondents were opposed to the election in the aforementioned NTV poll, even when framed in terms of a delay in the consumption tax increase.

In terms of Abe saying he would definitely have to put the consumption tax up in April 2017, in the Asahi poll 49 percent did not evaluate positively this assertion, while 33 percent did. In a straight yes or no on putting the tax up in April 2017, 49 percent were against this, and 39 percent were in favour. Abe committing to the 2017 sales tax rise while going to people to get support for the delay and his economic policies will certainly send a confusing message for the public in terms of what kind of mandate he is asking for. One of the big challenges of this election will be how to interpret the results – of course Abe and Suga have their own views on what this election is and is not about – but for the rest of us it is unclear what it is precisely that Abe wants to claim to be able to do post-election (that he could not already do, legally or otherwise).

Perhaps the most encouraging result for the opposition comes from the question on whether the public believed that Abe’s economic policies were actually designed to improve wages and employment opportunities. Only 20 percent said the thought this was directly tied in to his economic policies, while 65 percent said they didn’t think so. This is the narrative that the opposition will increasingly play on during the next 3 weeks, and the bad GDP numbers only help this narrative.

While it may be harder for the opposition to get traction on this, despite its significance IMHO, the Asahi also asked a question relating to reform of the House of Representatives and reduction of its size. Abe agreed in 2012 to the consumption tax legislation and to cutting the House of Representatives before the next election as a symbol of government sacrifice. However, only 5 seats have been reduced to deal with the voter-value disparity (ineffectively, it is already over 2:1 again); equally important is that discussion on the electoral features of a new House of Representatives have only gotten to the stage of agreeing on a third-party mechanism for discussing options. When asked how much of a problem it was that Abe was calling an election before implementing the promised reduction in House of Representatives size, 39 percent of respondent said they thought it was a big problem, and 38 percent said it was problem to a degree.

In terms of the implications of the headline support rates, we will probably see a solid loss of seats in the single member districts (SMDs) by the LDP, but many of those candidates will likely be revived on the PR list. Notwithstanding some exogenous or unexpected event, I would expect to see the LDP gain around 20 to 25 seats on the PR list, picking up the more conservative supporters of parties like the now defunct JRP and Your Party.

According to my own perfunctory analysis on the SMDs, there are 29 districts that the opposition should easily take back from the LDP by the simple act of cooperating with each other, and there are a further 32 SMDs that should be in play if the opposition coordinates and runs a moderately successful campaign. Greater gains in a further 50 or more seats would only be likely if some serious unexpected game changer enters into the election, although in that case I would expect that to also impact upon the PR support rate as well. A lot depends on the opposition coordinating, however, although there are some signs that in some of the key SMD regions some tough decisions (jp) are being made (such as in Tokyo where somehow the LDP managed to win a majority of seats despite its candidates seldom winning more than 35 percent of the votes cast). There are also some signs that some of the more controversial members of the DPJ old guard are retiring, such as Sengoku Yoshito and Tanaka Makiko, which is probably only a benefit for the DPJ. As MTC notes, pretending the Kaieda Banri doesn’t exist might also be of help.

That said, at this stage I would expect the LDP-Komeito coalition to only lose 35 seats (including the five seats that no longer exist).

I hope to refine this analysis over the coming three weeks based on new developments.