Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Election 2016: Yes, I Said It. No, You Don’t Have to Read It

My money is on a last-minute (albeit a year before the 2016 House of Councilors election) compromise on a near-de minimus set of changes that they hope will be enough to keep the Supreme Court from going ape and declaring the whole event null and void. Based on that premise…

The coalition as it currently stands will have 59 seats (including the nominally independent HoC President’s) up for reelection in 2016, with the other 76 seats safe until the 2019 election. This means that it must win 46 for an absolute majority, while 103 will give is a 2/3rds supermajority that would give it the bicameral power to send a constitutional amendment to a national referendum. The coalition’s actual take in 2016 should fall somewhere in the 60-76 range, which means that it will need another 27-43 for a supermajority. What is the arithmetic for that?

The Party for Future Generations (PFG) will support the kind of amendment that Mr. Abe would like to see, but it only has 7 votes, 2 of which will be up for grabs in 2016. Its 2014 HoR collapse suggests that it will face an uphill battle then, but let’s be generous and give it a 5-7 post-election range. The coalition still needs 22-38 for a supermajority. Mr. Hashimoto’s JIP may also look more favorably on a constitutional amendment to Mr. Abe’s liking, although such prospects diminished somewhat after Mr. Hashimoto ditched Shintaro Ishihara and his friends and merged with the more opposition-minded wing of the now-defunct Your Party. In any case, JIP has 11 seats, of which 6 have terms that run to 2019. Could it pick up 16 (22 minus 6) seats, the minimum required to make up a supermajority? That is not implausible, since the JIP took 15.72% of the regional proportional representation votes in the 2014 HoR election, even as the DPJ won 17 seats in the 2013 HoC election with only 13.40% of the national proportional representation votes.

Although the numbers will change a bit even under my de minimus assumption, securing votes for putting a constitutional amendment to Mr. Abe’s liking to a national referendum appears to be within reach…but only barely, for the following reasons.

First, it appears unlikely that the ruling coalition will hit the high end of the 60-76 range. One reason that the LDP did so well in the 2013 election was that there were three politically significant parties (plus the eternal voice of dissent JCP) competing for votes. Now, one of them is gone, and the remaining two at least managed to avoid putting up competing candidates in most single-seat districts in the 2014 HoR election. Other things being equal, this boosts the hopes of the opposition in the single-seat election prefectures, where the opposition—more specifically the DPJ—fared so poorly.

Second, other thing are more likely to be unequal than not, and to the opposition’s favor. It was the DPJ and JIP who were able to capitalize on Your Party’s collapse, while the LDP and Komeito lost out if the 2013 and 2014 party-line voting by the electorate is to be believed. The Abe administration has an upside—the economy could soar, or Mr. Abe could benefit from a really-around effect in the case of a crisis for which the public does not hold him accountable—but it also has a downside—any number of mishaps, plus an economic downturn/anemic recovery. Plus, there is the worrying, slow but steady decline in public support for his cabinet.

Third, the LDP has vastly more seats in HoC than any other party. This means that blame for what are likely to be blatant efforts to protect incumbents will largely fall on the LDP. The opposition parties by contrast will be able to push dramatically anti-incumbent reform, safe in the knowledge that it will hurt them more than it hurts you.

Fourth, even if the coalition and its potential constitutional amendment comrade-in-arms prevail against all odds, there is still the matter of the Komeito/Sokagakkai religio-political complex to consider. Does anyone think that Mr. Abe can make nice with PFG and JIP on constitutional amendment and expect Komeito to go along with it?

Fifth and finally, there is the matter of the national referendum by an electorate in which a healthy plurality oppose the principle of “collective self-defense,” if not its specifics.

It all depends, of course. If there is a sweeping change in sentiment that swings the public mood in Mr. Abe’s favor, now that’s totally different situation.

The ball, actually is in China’s court.



2010 HoC Election (57.92%)
2013 HoC Election (52.61%)
2014 HoR Election (52.66%)
NPR Votes
%
Seats
NPR Votes
%
Seats
RPR Votes
%
Seats
LDP
14,071,671
24.07
51
18,460,335
34.68
65
17,658,916
33.11
291
Komeito
7,639,433
13.07
9
    7,568,082
14.22
11
7,314,236
13.71
35
Sum
    21,711,104
33.27
60
26,028,417
48.90
76
24,973,152
46.82
326
DPJ
18,450,139
31.56
44
7,134,215
13.40
17
9,775,991
18.33
73
JRP/JIP



    6,355,300
11.94
8
8,382,699
15.72
41
Your Party
7,943,649
13.59
10
4,755,161
8.93
8



JCP
3,563,557
6.10
3
5,154,055
9.68
8
6,062,962
11.37
21
others
6,732,359
11.53
4
3,802,466
7.14
4
4,139,643
7.76
14
Sum
36,689,704
62.82
61
27,201,197
51.10
45
28,361,295
53.18
149
Total
    58,400,808
100.00
121
53,229,615
  100.00
121
    53,334,447
100.00
475



2 comments:

jaichind said...

I agree with pretty much with everything you are saying although I have a disagreement on a technical point. Namely your statement "It was the DPJ and JIP who were able to capitalize on Your Party’s collapse."

I argue that LDP+ (LDP and KP) gained most of the YP votes and that the relative decline of the LDP+ PR vote in 2014 relative to 2013 is from losses of the 2013 LDP+ vote over to DPJ and JIP. To show you what I am talking about see the chart below where by each PR region I put the YP 2013 PR vote, the LDP+ 2013 PR vote, and LDP+ 2014 PR vote. Turnout for the 2013 and 2014 elections were about the same so this is a good apples-to-apples comparison.


PR YP 13 LDP+ 13 LDP+ 14 Diff
北海道 6.33% 44.41% 42.09% -2.32%
東北 7.55% 48.65% 44.16% -4.49%
北関東 13.00% 50.13% 49.30% -0.83%
南関東 13.28% 46.99% 46.77% -0.22%
東京 12.62% 44.14% 44.21% 0.07%
北陸信越 7.19% 50.16% 45.57% -4.60%
東海 9.04% 47.76% 45.77% -1.99%
近畿 6.34% 45.36% 43.55% -1.81%
中国 5.30% 57.06% 54.82% -2.24%
四国 5.79% 59.27% 50.63% -8.64%
九州 5.86% 54.91% 52.05% -2.86%
Total 8.93% 48.90% 46.82% -2.07%

Note that the areas where the LDP+ managed to minimize losses from 2013 to 2014 are in exactly in places where YP was very strong in 2013. In places where YP in 2013 the LDP+ took large loses from 2013. By inference one can say that LDP+ managed to get a lot of if not a majority of the 2013 YP vote but lost a bunch of the 2013 LDP+ votes to DPJ and JIP.

If this is true then we can say that the 2014 LDP+ coalition is even more vulnerable. If Abe does not move on economic reform these YP votes that went to LDP+ in 2014 could easily move to JIP next election. And if Abe does move on economic reform then his LDP+ base, especially in pro-state capitalist backward economic areas might revolt.

Jun Okumura said...

jaichind:

I’ll meet you half way, sort of, and say that nothing is proven, though I stand by my conclusions for now. Let me explain.

If an identical proportion of the 2012 YP vote in the PR districts is transferred to the LDP in 2014 in each of the districts, the rise in the proportion of the LDP vote in each district will be in proportion to the ratio of the 2012 YP votes to the total votes in that district. The larger the proportion of the overall votes in a PR district that the YP received in 2012, the greater the impact of a fixed percentage of that vote transferred to the LDP in 2014 would be for the LDP, as long as that vote total was not zero. To illustrate, if the YP had 10% of the 2012 vote in a PR district, it would only take 1/5th of that vote to make up for a 2 percentage point decline in the 2014 LDP vote. With 5%, it would take 2/5th.

This line of reasoning is broadly compatible with the results that you show, and leans towards (but does not prove) my conclusion.