In crowded field, local votes could play bigger role in LDP election

The record number of candidates in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election has put an unprecedented focus on the votes of local party members.

Voting will be held on Sept. 27, with the winner essentially assured of becoming the next prime minister of Japan.

Nine politicians officially registered their candidacies at LDP headquarters in Tokyo’s Nagatacho district starting on the morning of Sept. 12.

They are: Sanae Takaichi, 63, economic security minister; Takayuki Kobayashi, 49, former economic security minister; Yoshimasa Hayashi, 63, chief Cabinet secretary; Shinjiro Koizumi, 43, former environment minister; Yoko Kamikawa, 71, foreign minister; Katsunobu Kato, 68, former chief Cabinet secretary: Taro Kono, 61, digital transformation minister; Shigeru Ishiba, 67, former LDP secretary-general; and Toshimitsu Motegi, 68, LDP secretary-general.

In LDP elections, votes are collected mainly from party lawmakers and rank-and-file party members.

The crowded field is expected to disperse the votes of LDP Diet members.

And since the views of local politicians are said to better reflect public opinion, some candidates believe that local votes could influence the voting behavior of the Diet members.

Ishiba received letters of recommendation from some members of the Osaka prefectural assembly and the Osaka city assembly on Sept. 9.

Upon receiving the letters, he emphasized the importance of local members’ opinions.

“It is local assembly members rather than Diet members who are directly scolded” by voters upset by the party’s recent political fund scandal, Ishiba said.

In late August, when a top official of an LDP prefectural branch visited the office of former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in the Diet building in Tokyo, Koizumi was present.

Suga bowed and said to the official, “For Koizumi’s sake, please take care of local votes.”

The LDP currently holds 367 seats in the Diet. For the election, each of these lawmakers’ ballots will be counted as one in the first round of voting.

The votes of the 1 million or so local members and allies of the party are distributed proportionally so that the total number of local votes also equals 367 in the first round.

To qualify for the presidential election, each candidate must be nominated by 20 Diet members.

With nine candidates qualifying, it can be assumed that 180 Diet members, or nearly half of the 367, have already decided how they will vote.

The votes of the remaining lawmakers are also expected to be dispersed to some extent, making the local votes even more crucial in the election.

Candidates who are popular on the local level will definitely try to win the election in the first round. That is because if no candidate secures a majority in the first round, a runoff is held between the top two finishers.

In a runoff, each Diet member’s vote will again be counted as one for a total of 367.

However, only one vote is allocated to each LDP prefectural branch in the runoff, meaning a total of 47 votes on the local level.

In other words, the value of one Diet member’s vote is worth nine times that of a prefectural chapter in the runoff.

The current system was adopted after the 2012 LDP presidential election, won by Shinzo Abe.

Five candidates ran in that election.

Ishiba led after the first round of voting by gaining 165 of the 300 local votes, nearly double the figure collected by second-place Abe. But Ishiba’s total was not enough for a majority.

In the runoff, only Diet members could vote, and Abe won the presidency and became prime minister for the second time.

Some members of prefectural branches vehemently opposed the election result, saying Abe’s win did not reflect the will of the local people.

The rules were changed, giving prefectural chapters a voice, albeit limited, in a runoff.

The LDP presidential election is being held in the wake of the political fund scandal, which has created a growing sense of crisis within the party.

“If the results of the local votes are overturned in a runoff election, the LDP will even lose the support of party members and come to a standstill,” a veteran Lower House member said,