Ishiba Says Keeping Upper House Majority Is ‘Must-Achieve’;Some in Ruling Parties Consider His Goal Too Modest

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun at the Prime Minister’s Office on Friday.
15:20 JST, June 28, 2025
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has stressed that maintaining a majority in the House of Councillors election next month, including uncontested seats, will be the “must-achieve target” for the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.
Ishiba made the statement in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun on Friday as to what he thinks about the threshold of victory or defeat in the upcoming election.
The statement indicates the prime minister’s strong determination toward the election. But if the goal is not achieved, it will mean the two parties will lose the governing majority in both chambers, and Ishiba will be inevitably brought to account.
“Amid the difficult political situation, securing a majority, combined with uncontested seats, will be the must-achieve target,” Ishiba said in the interview.
He met with Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito over lunch following the interview. “We have agreed that the LDP and Komeito will collaborate with each other toward securing a majority [including uncontested seats],” Saito told reporters after the meeting.
Of the 248 seats that make up the upper house, a total of 125 seats will be up for grabs. This includes 124 seats up for normally scheduled elections and one seat to fill a vacancy in a Tokyo electoral constituency.
Currently, the ruling parties have 75 seats that are not up for grabs, and if the LDP and Komeito win 50 seats in the upcoming election, they can maintain their majority. As the two parties have 66 seats up for grabs, Ishiba’s goal will be achieved even if the number of the ruling camp’s seats drops by 16.
Therefore, some LDP members say the bar is set too low, as former party Policy Research Council Chairperson Koichi Hagiuda said, “There is no air of tension” within the party. But Ishiba disagreed, saying he does not think the goal is set too low.
The prime minister set securing the majority of the entire number of seats as his goal because the headwind against the government and the ruling parties has yet to die down.
Although rice prices recently began to decline, both the LDP and Komeito suffered setbacks in the Tokyo assembly election on June 22, revealing voters’ strict assessment of the government and the ruling parties.
In upper house elections since 2000, the only time the LDP and Komeito failed to win a total of 50 seats was in 2007. Defeated by the now defunct Democratic Party of Japan, the two parties won a combined 46 seats, leading to a so-called twisted Diet, in which the two chambers are controlled by different parties.
What Ishiba set as the “must-achieve target” could be called the minimum threshold. An LDP veteran member from a non-mainstream group said the prime minister should take responsibility if the ruling parties fail to win 63 seats, or the majority of the seats that are up for grabs.
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