Via the BBC: Japan Democrats agree coalition
Japan’s newly-elected Democratic Party (DPJ) has agreed to form a coalition with two smaller parties, officials from the three parties have said.
The deal with the New People’s Party and the Social Democratic Party came after agreement was reached on a proposal to move a US base in Okinawa.
[...]
The DPJ won 308 seats of the 480-member lower house but needs the support of the smaller parties in the weaker upper house to ensure bills are not delayed.
“We’ve finally wrapped up talks. It’s good we had a clean outcome. The three party leaders will meet in the afternoon and sign to confirm,” said the DPJ secretary general, Katsuya Okada.
What will ultimately be interesting will be to see how well the new government actually governs and the degree to which US-Japanese relations (especially in terms of military relations) actually change.
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September 9th, 2024 at 11:52 am
The BBC quote implies that this coalition with two smaller parties was not a sure thing.
Just to be clear: this is a pre-electoral coalition. These parties cooperated in the election and committed to forming a government together if they won a joint majority. Only relatively minor details were left to be worked out after the election (which is why it is forming so quickly).
Because of Japan’s mixed-member majoritarian system, parties need to avoid vote-splitting in the single-seat districts (unlike in Germany’s or New Zealand’s mixed-member proportional). Thus while the DPJ won a large majority for its own members, that majority would have been smaller without stand-down agreements with the smaller parties.
The (now opposition!) LDP has had a similar arrangement with the Komeito in recent elections and governments.
Yes, the second chamber matters, too, for bill passage (though not for government formation). And the BBC is correct that the DPJ controls the second chamber only through cooperation with its partners.