2023 Japan Unified local elections

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Democratic Party for the People
78%
New Komeito
73%
Japan Restoration Party
72%
suffrage party
67%
LDP
66%
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan
62%
Reiwa Shinsengumi
62%
Social Democratic Party
61%
Japanese Communist Party
57%
Politician Women's 48th Party
52%

seems very off since I'd probably vote SDP, Reiwa, CDP, DPP, or JCP.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Actually probably what pushed a lot of leftist parties down in mine is that I’m super pro-nuclear

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

SDP continue its move to be the "Woke Party" which worked well for them in the 2022 Upper House elections.

Is that sarcastic or not?

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

SDP continue its move to be the "Woke Party" which worked well for them in the 2022 Upper House elections.

Is that sarcastic or not?

No. SDP was rapidly losing relevance and on the verge of disbanding after half of the party voted to secede and join the CDP in 2021. For the 2022 HoC elections they ran as the ultra liberal feminist LGBTQ party, and kept their PR seat with a respectable result.
There is a small but highly active progressive movement in Japan, SDP are positioning themselves as vanguards of the movement in order to ensure their continued survival.

Makes sense, for a small party like them they need a solid base, no matter how small, to stay relevant.

Different question, might've been asked before. Are there any left-leaning parties that are pro-nuclear? I still find it to be stupid how many so-called environmentalists push so hard against something that has the potential to phase out fossil fuels much faster

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

RS surpassing JCP is an interesting sign. Still too bad they hate nuclear (even if in Japan, it's more understandable to have concerns after Fukushima, but that was just horrible placement)

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

PNHK is dead, I assume? Is it because of all the inner party squabbles and stuff?

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Kishida can't catch a break...

That he's lasted this long is like a small miracle. Kishida's cabinet rating has consistently been in the toilet, and you'd think that Taro Kono or someone like that would be starting to gather support from the factions. I cannot believe that they're perfectly content to keep him into the next election.

One has to wonder if there's a sense that not wanting to sit on the hot seat has led to them biding their time.

It's a horrible time to be an incumbent pretty much anywhere in the world.

Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe the idea is that if Kishida is in their way to get control, then having him crash and burn is the plan?

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Why are the LDP commiting seppuku on themselves?
 

The LDP clearly did not pick this state of affairs.  This entire Abe faction funding scandal has been out there as a topic since 2015 when the opposition made a big deal of it but it went nowhere because the official investigation was going so slowly that there was no smoking gun.  Abe's assassination set off a chain reaction where Abe was not around to use his power with the investigatory bureaucracy to slow down the pace of investigation which in turn finally led to smoking guys being revealed.   

So in that sense, Abe's assassin won in so many different ways

a) He caused the complete collapse of the Unification Church as an operation in Japan
b) He now caused the Abe faction to be permanently damaged

The reason the LDP is not that worried about this state of affairs is because the LDP has an internal ecosystem where it has several parties within a party.  The figure, most likely correct, is that if things get bad enough they will just dump Kishida and them blame all the problems on Kishida and giving the new LDP PM a clean slate with a honeymoon period to potentially fight another election where they will lose seats but not lose power.

Are there any recent political assassins who have been as successful in their goals as Tetsuya Yamagami? It really seems like his goals of collapsing the Unification Church, that basically bankrupted his family, and Abe's faction, for being tied to it, have been achieved or set in motion, all from one action.