After calling a snap election Japan prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has secured landslide victory in the Lower House election on February 9 with projections from NHK showing the party securing a two-thirds supermajority in the 465-seat Lower House. 

 

Results early Monday showed that the LDP, which had 198 seats before the election, had won 316 seats, giving it a higher proportion of representatives in the Lower House than any other party in post-war Japan.

 

LDP and ts coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), had won a total of 352 seats, significantly expanding its majority of 233. This means the two parties can overturn any vote in the Upper House. 

 

Some investors are on edge as Takaichi has proposed a strong tax cutting agenda which could bring fiscal challenges to the country and raise bond yields further and place pressure on the yen.

 

One proposed tax cut is to remove the sales tax which could cost the country around $15 billion a year; there has been no proposal set out to fund such a tax. 

 

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