By Kiyoshi Takenaka

TOKYO, Reuters – Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is likely to lose some seats at the Oct. 31 lower House election. However, the coalition formed with Komeito will be able to retain a majority of the votes, according several newspapers citing poll results.

Fumio Kishida is aiming to get a mandate from voters for his coronavirus response, and to take steps to rehabilitate the economy that has been hit by pandemics. But weak electoral results could make him another premier in short term.

After Yoshihide Suga lost his popularity and struggled with a fifth round of coronavirus infection, Kishida was elected leader of the third largest economy in the world on October 4.

According to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, 38% of respondents intended to vote for Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a survey. This is down from the 41% who participated in an earlier survey.

The latest poll found that 7% of respondents planned to vote in Komeito. This is up from 5% from the last poll. However, 13% of respondents who wanted to vote for Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (the largest opposition) was the same percentage as the previous poll.

Mainichi Daily and several other newspapers also reported that the ruling bloc is likely to win majority. But, it’s expected that LDP may suffer setbacks. LDP won a large victory at the 2017 lower house elections under Shinzo Abe (Japan’s longest-serving premier), who was forced to resign last year because of health problems.

Atsuo Ito, a political analyst said that while declines in the LDP are not surprising after the party’s huge victory in 2017, a significant loss of seats within the ruling party will cause instability.

“I expect the threshold to be about 30 seats. Ito stated that if the LDP loses even more, there could be doubts within the LDP about whether or not they will be able to fight next year’s upper house elections under Mr. Kishida.”

“Despite this, it is unlikely that they would change a prime minister within the year.” You might consider other options, like a major cabinet restructuring.

Kishida said that he hopes to achieve a simple majority of the ruling coalition. Nearly two-thirds (or nearly) of seats in the lower chamber, which was dissolution last week, were held by Komeito and the LDP.