Takaichi’s Landslide Hands Japan a Postwar Supermajority—and a Mandate to Rearm

On a cold Sunday in February, Japanese voters handed their first female prime minister the kind of power no leader in Tokyo has wielded since the ashes of World War II.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 316 of the 465 seats in the House of Representatives in a snap election on Feb. 8, a record-breaking victory that gives the longtime ruling party a two-thirds supermajority on its own in the more powerful lower house of parliament.

The result, combined with 36 seats for junior coalition partner Japan Innovation Party (JIP), cements a commanding conservative bloc in the Diet and opens the door to a far-reaching agenda: a major fiscal stimulus program, a rapid defense buildup and, for the first time in generations, a serious attempt to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution.

Takaichi called the election on Jan. 23, just four months into her premiership, framing it as a referendum on her economic and security program after years of political drift and scandal. The gamble paid off. Her landslide has redrawn Japan’s political map and raised urgent questions about how far the country is prepared to move away from the self-imposed restraints that have defined its postwar identity.

A win amplified by the system

Japan’s dual electoral system magnified the scale of the victory. Of the 465 seats in the lower house, 289 are chosen in single-member districts by first-past-the-post voting and 176 through proportional representation in 11 regional blocs. The LDP dominated both tiers, sweeping scores of districts where the newly formed opposition bloc, the Centrist Reform Alliance, split or diluted the anti-government vote.

The win was so lopsided that the LDP effectively ran out of candidates on some of its proportional lists, forfeiting seats it would have been entitled to by vote share. Even so, the 316 seats the party secured surpassed its previous high of 300 in 1986 and eclipsed the 308 seats won by the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, making it the strongest single-party showing in the postwar era.

The opposition’s main vehicle, the Centrist Reform Alliance, was formed last year through a merger of the liberal-leaning Constitutional Democratic Party and Komeito, the Buddhist-inspired party that had long served as the LDP’s junior coalition partner. The new bloc lost more than two-thirds of its seats in the election, and its co-leaders—former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and veteran Komeito politician Tetsuo Saito—signaled they would step down to take responsibility.

Turnout was around 53.8%, higher than some recent elections but low by historical standards, underscoring both voter fatigue and the scale of the LDP’s organizational advantage.

Who is Sanae Takaichi?

For Takaichi, 63, the result crowns a long climb from factional conservative to national power broker. A protégé of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, she built her career as an outspoken hawk on China and a defender of traditional social values. She opposes legalizing same-sex marriage and allowing married couples to retain separate surnames and supports maintaining male-only imperial succession.

At the same time, Takaichi has cultivated an unusually strong social media presence for a Japanese conservative and has drawn notable support from younger voters with her promises of economic activism and national “strength.”

“I asked the people of Japan to judge our vision for a strong economy and a strong defense,” she told supporters in Tokyo after the scale of the victory became clear. “This result is a solemn mandate to move forward with responsible, proactive policies to protect our livelihoods and our sovereignty.”

Big stimulus, mixed market reaction

Central to that vision is a large fiscal package. Takaichi campaigned on a 21 trillion yen (about $140 billion) stimulus plan aimed at bolstering growth, supporting strategic industries such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and defense technology, and easing pressure on households. She has promised a two-year suspension of the 8% consumption tax on food, describing the measure as immediate relief for families squeezed by higher prices.

Financial markets responded with a split screen. On the first trading day after the vote, the Nikkei 225 stock index jumped more than 5% intraday to surpass 57,000 points for the first time before closing at a record high above 56,000. Shares of defense contractors, machinery makers and technology firms surged on expectations of government spending.

Japan’s government bond market was less enthusiastic. Yields on 10-year Japanese government bonds climbed to around 2.3%, and 30-year yields approached 3.7%, reflecting expectations of heavier debt issuance in a country where public debt already exceeds twice the size of the economy. The yen weakened against major currencies, hitting record lows against the Swiss franc and nearing historic troughs versus the euro.

One Tokyo-based bond strategist said the election delivered “clarity and stability” for equities but also “an even more aggressive fiscal and defense stance than markets were pricing in,” adding: “The question now is how far the government can push before the bond market pushes back.”

A security mandate with regional consequences

Security policy is where Takaichi’s mandate could prove most consequential beyond Japan’s borders.

For decades Japan has capped defense spending at around 1% of gross domestic product and maintained strict self-imposed controls on arms exports under its pacifist constitution. Under Abe and his successors, that ceiling began to rise. The current government has already committed to lift defense spending to 2% of GDP over several years, bringing Japan closer to NATO standards and making it one of the world’s top military spenders.

Takaichi has pledged to lock in that trajectory. Her program includes acquiring long-range “counterstrike” capabilities, expanding unmanned systems and beefing up defenses for the Nansei island chain that stretches toward Taiwan. She has also backed creating a national intelligence agency and tightening anti-espionage laws, arguing that Japan must better protect sensitive technologies and respond to cyber and information threats.

Perhaps most sensitive is her plan to loosen tight rules on defense exports. Japan has traditionally banned exports of lethal weapons and limited even nonlethal sales, a stance rooted in postwar pacifism and regional sensitivities. The Takaichi government wants to remove the prohibition on lethal exports, especially for systems co-developed with allies, to sustain its defense industrial base.

“Japan can no longer afford to rely solely on others for its security,” Takaichi has argued in Diet debates. “We must take responsibility as a capable ally and a responsible member of the international community.”

China and the U.S. react

China has reacted sharply to Takaichi’s rise and her rhetoric on Taiwan. In late 2025 she suggested that a crisis over Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan under its security laws, potentially allowing the Self-Defense Forces to provide logistical support to U.S. operations. Beijing summoned Japan’s ambassador and later imposed tighter checks on some Japanese imports, including seafood, while warning its citizens about travel to Japan.

After the election, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the outcome reflected “deep-seated structural problems and evolving ideological currents” in Japan and urged Tokyo not to “repeat the mistakes of militarism.” He called on Japan to “earnestly abide by the spirit of its pacifist constitution and its commitments in key political documents between China and Japan.”

In Washington, the landslide was welcomed as strengthening a central pillar of U.S. strategy in Asia. President Donald Trump, who last year signed a “New Golden Age” alliance agreement with Takaichi covering security, technology cooperation and supply chains, congratulated her on social media, calling her decision to call early elections “bold and wise” and praising what he described as a “conservative peace-through-strength agenda.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters the result was “a big victory for our most important ally in the Indo-Pacific.” The U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, George Glass, wrote that the vote was “an impressive win” and vowed to deepen cooperation.

Takaichi is expected to visit Washington in March for a high-profile summit that could showcase the deepening alignment between the two countries on China and Taiwan.

The constitutional fault line

At the heart of the debate over Japan’s future, however, lies its constitution.

Article 9 of the 1947 charter, drafted under U.S. occupation, declares that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never