The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated Japanese politics since its founding in 1955, ruling with only two brief interruptions. Never has it won as decisively as it did in a snap election on February 8th, when it took almost 70% of the seats in parliament’s powerful lower house. Takaichi Sanae, the triumphant prime minister, now has a historic chance to transform her country. She must not squander it.
To live up to the expectations that her electoral gamble and huge victory have created, Ms Takaichi needs to think bigger and broader. She cannot treat her time in office as routine, focused on short-term relief to ease the pain of today; she must take Japan’s long-term demographic and economic challenges head on. She should also recognise that her country has a crucial role to play as a stabilising force in a turbulent world. And she must be a leader for all of Japan, not only for her right-wing loyalists. She must, in short, gamble all over again.
She has the backing. Support for Ms Takaichi came from across the country. The LDP secured 316 seats in the 465-seat lower house, up from 198, giving it a two-thirds supermajority, which will allow it to override an upper house it does not control. Ms Takaichi tapped into Japanese voters’ desires for both security and change. She offered hard-nosed realism for a hard-edged era. She also personifies a break with the old guard. She is the plain-speaking child of a middle-class family, not the buttoned-up scion of a political dynasty, like many of her predecessors. And she is a woman, the first to lead democratic Japan.
Japan’s prime minister has earned a once-in-a-generation chance to remake her country. Will she seize it? https://t.co/ywtiNsPrWq
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 12, 2026
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