Japanese voters have renewed the mandate of the coalition dominated by the Liberal Democrat Party, ruling with two smaller allies - but with a reduced majority and increasing evidence of popular dissatisfaction with its policies and leadership. Nevertheless, in politics it is results which count. The three parties look set to hold on to power and to continue their policies on the economy and international affairs.
With over 100 million voters, Japan is one of the world's largest parliamentary democracies. In this election much depended on the number of people who decided to go to the polls. Over the years, the proportion of the electorate voting has gone steadily down, as it is doing in many other democracies, reflecting disenchantment with the political process. The prime minister, Mr Yoshiro Mori, frankly - if ill-advisedly - acknowledged in the closing stage of the campaign that it would be better from the LDP's point of view if the estimated 35 million undecided voters slept in on election day; the greater the turnout the more likely was a swing against the coalition. In the event, the turnout at 63 per cent was up four points on the last election. This was sufficient to squeeze the coalition's majority but not enough to remove it from office. The narrower majority will still allow it to control the key parliamentary committees.
Among the opposition, the Democrat Party was the clear beneficiary of voter dissatisfaction. It supports rapid action to bring down Japan's large national debt, which stands at 129 per cent of gross domestic product - the highest among the world's leading industrialised nations. The Democrats proposed reducing the threshold at which income tax applies, to accomplish that objective in addition to cutting the pump-priming public investment that has brought it about. Its support increased by some 30 per cent. But a potential coalition partner, the Communists, had a pretty disastrous result, despite a growing reputation in regional and local politics.
The LDP has been continuously in power since 1955, except for one ten-month interval. Its renowned organisational ability, lubricated with pork barrel spending on construction and infrastructural projects, has carried it through yet another electoral contest. The government has vowed to maintain existing policies until economic growth reaches two per cent and unemployment comes down from its current level of 4.8 per cent.
Thus fiscal reform or radical action to deregulate the economy, cannot be expected in the short term. This will disappoint many of Japan's major trading partners but they will also be reassured about the continuity of economic policy.
On foreign policy, continuity is also assured by this result. Mr Mori's immediate priority will be to host the Group of Eight summit in Okinawa next month. It will review the co-ordination of economic policy across the main industrial countries, looking particularly at how Europe and Japan can take over the role of growth centres from the United States which has sustained the international economy in recent years. Mr Mori, in another unscripted aside last month, antagonised China and other Asian nations by referring to Japan as "a divine nation with the emperor at its heart", language redolent of its aggressive past.
He will have his work cut out to convince neighbouring countries that Japan genuinely seeks to normalise relations with them by putting such imperial rhetoric firmly behind it.