Introduction

On 8 February, Japan and Thailand headed to the polls. Incumbent conservative parties won overwhelming victories in both countries, refreshing their mandates so as to strengthen them. In Japan, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) wrested a rare supermajority in the House of Representatives. In Thailand, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai Party (BJT) won a staggering 194 seats in the Lower House, beating out the progressive opposition by 78 seats and the populist liberal conservatives by 118 seats.

In Japan, Takaichi gambled on a snap election to secure a stronger hold on the Diet. The LDP’s congressional strength has waxed and waned in recent years, forcing it to rely on coalitional support to remain in power. This time around, the LDP bucked the trend and secured its largest election victory since World War II. Takaichi has pledged tougher policies on immigration, an increase in government spending, and renewed efforts to alter Japan’s Constitution to strengthen the role of the Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). Takaichi is an ardent supporter of the US-Japan relationship and is supported by the popularity of her close relationship with Donald Trump.

In Thailand, the BJT secured a decisive victory over the progressive People’s Party (PP) and populist Pheu Thai (PT) Party. It outperformed opinion polls that gave a clear lead to the PP, which is very popular among younger and urban voters. PT, the once dominant political machine of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was dealt a major setback and is down by more than half the seats it won in 2023. The BJT is a nationalist party that represents Thai conservative interests. Its popularity soared after its handling of the Cambodian-Thai border conflict last year. Backed by the image of military power, the BJT is set to form a governing coalition with its conservative allies in the House.           

The LDP’s Pre-Election Context in Japan

The LDP has been living an uncertain existence since its loss in the 2009 elections. After the collapse of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 2012, the highly unpopular LDP was returned to power only after a chaotic election that severely divided voters. In 2014, the LDP’s dominant position was seemingly restored by the popularity of Shinzo Abe, bookending a run that saw consecutive victories in the 2013 House of Councilors and 2012 and 2014 House of Representatives elections. The party went on to win the 2017 general election, but the sudden resignation of Abe sooner sent the LDP into flux.

The LDP lost its two-thirds majority in the 2019 House of Councilors election. Abe’s successor, Yoshihide Suga, was in office for about a year until poor approval ratings forced him out. The 2021 election returned the LDP to power but reduced its numbers, this time led by Fumio Kushida, who also resigned not long after in 2024 amidst a party-wide slush fund scandal. The subsequent elections held under the leadership of Shigeru Ishiba led to the loss of LDP majorities in both Houses of the Diet, triggering calls for internal party elections that eventually paved the way for Takaichi’s ascendance.

After the trauma of losing power in 2009 and the political turmoil that followed Abe’s resignation in 2020, the LDP appeared down but not out. It was unclear whether Takaichi could turn the party’s fortunes around in this year’s election, having seen that her approval ratings were actually declining and that there were more opponents than supporters of the snap polls. Major election issues surrounded the rising cost of living, which most parties have proposed to offset with cuts in or a freeze to the consumption tax. Other significant issues include national security, immigration, labor shortages, and energy policy. Meanwhile, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), a new opposition coalition formed by merger between the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and the LDP’s long-running former ally Komeito, postured for a showdown that would decide Japan’s and East Asia’s political landscape to come.

Democratic “Spoilers” in Japan

Japan is a liberal democracy, but the current ruling party is one that enjoys substantial incumbency advantage. With just 16 days between the dissolution of the chamber and voting, this election was the shortest in recent history. Severe weather conditions meant that canvassing and voting were made prohibitively difficult in some regions. Nonetheless, voter turnout hovered slightly above the Lower House election of 2024, indicating an increase in public interest.

Results of the Japanese Election

The LDP wins with a significantly enlarged majority of 316 seats – an increase of 118 seats to make it the largest ever achieved by a single party in the postwar era. The LDP-aligned Japan Innovation Party (JIP), popularly known as Ishin, gained 2 seats to achieve a total of 36, supplying the ruling bloc with 352 seats in total. The LDP’s performance was so overwhelming that it had to forfeit 14 proportional seats to other parties because it did not have enough candidates to fill them. This comes as Japan’s electoral system permits candidates to run simultaneously in both local constituencies and proportional representation contests.

The main opposition led by the CRA withered down to 49 seats from the pre-electoral total of 167. The smaller but increasingly popular centrist-oriented Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) maintained its 28 seats. The Sanseito, notorious for its far-right orientation, matched its Upper House performance in 2025 by winning 15 seats in this election. The results of this latest poll reflect the outcome of the 2012 election, when the LDP regained control of the Lower House by winning 294 seats after losing power just three years prior. The co-leaders of the CRA have since resigned from their posts following the coalition’s defeat.

A Return to One-Party Dominance?

The LDP emerged as a dominant party through what was known as the “1955 System” of a leading LDP, a fragmented opposition and a revolving door of weak prime ministers. The LDP holds the unusual distinction of being dominant while not being very popular. On average, only about a third of the population is LDP “supporters”. Curiously, the party has consistently won less than half the vote since 1967. This glaring disjuncture between dominance and popularity suggests that the party’s majorities are distorted to a sizeable extent by malapportionment, with the electoral system rewarding coordination (of the LDP) and punishing fragmentation (of the opposition).

It is noteworthy to mention that many independents are either former LDP members or those with close ties to the party, but because they lost in previous elections, they were excluded from the party list and have to contest on their own. These candidates are expected to enter the party caucus once elected, even though they are not formal members of the party. In this connection, the LDP’s total may encompass these independents, raising their actual share of the vote. The independents who were elected in this year’s elections are slated to enter the parliamentary caucus with the LDP.

Another key factor of the party’s dominance is its incumbency advantage and mastery over pork and particularistic benefits to voters. Because most of these benefits are organized at the village or town level, national candidates had to form supportive networks of local leaders willing to mobilize voters on a partisan basis. Particularistic benefits would then be dished out to localities that record high rates of success in turning out the vote for the LDP. This advantage is seen most clearly in the rural regions, which incidentally makes up the party’s biggest base of support until today.

Interestingly, this year’s election featured sources of the LDP’s strength that are not necessarily of its own making: that of the China factor and of opposition fragmentation. Evidently, the LDP was buoyed by heightened nationalist sentiment following its spat with China on the question of a Taiwan contingency. This indicates at least two things: the first is public approval for the LDP’s policy on Taiwan and the second is the collapse of the pro-China faction within the LDP. The latest manifesto released by the party’s Policy Research Council explicitly cites the importance of maintaining “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”. There are strong indications that the Japanese public is increasingly wary of the deteriorating military balance in the region, and in this connection, have thrown their support behind the LDP right.

The other factor concerns opposition fragmentation. Hastily set up leading up to the election, the CRA performed poorly even among non-partisan voters. For proportional representation, the CDP and Komeito collectively achieved around 29 percent of the vote in the 2021 Lower House election; this time around, they achieved only 14 percent. Like in earlier Japanese snap elections, the LDP has capitalized on a “surprise” election to catch the opposition off-guard, constraining their ability to coordinate effectively. The unpopularity of the snap elections, the LDP’s recent financial scandals, and Takaichi’s own backtracking of proposed tax policies and her confusing comments on a weakening yen should have deterred voters from picking the LDP. Yet, they rejected the opposition and returned to “the devil they know” – and in overwhelming fashion. The dire straits in which the main opposition now finds itself may well mean another era of one-party dominance in Japan.

The BJT’s Pre-Election Context in Thailand

The BJT was founded in 2008 by former members of the Friends of Newin faction aligned with Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT). The BJT has a reputation for being a highly pragmatic party. Following the 2019 General Election, the BJT has enjoyed a sustained level of support from the southern, central and northeastern provincial electorates: it won 51 seats in the 2019 election and 71 seats in the 2023 election. Unlike the PT and Move Forward Party (MFP), the BJT has prioritized consolidating power locally over establishing recognizable policy offerings and ideological programs. It is known in particular for poaching defecting Members of Parliament (MPs) from other parties along with its flexibility in forming alliances with parties that they do not necessarily see eye-to-eye with. In this connection, the BJT has built considerable muscle and has for a while been strategically placed as a power broker in Thai politics.

The party has also built up a solid reputation as a royalist party. In a fervent display of deference to the monarchy, the BJT’s Chada Thaised rejected in graphic manner the MFP’s prime ministerial candidate after the 2023 election, adjudging that the MFP had gone too far in their campaign to amend the lèse-majesté law. This has brought the party considerable respect and trust among the status quo nationalists. The BJT would continue its upward trajectory by indirectly winning 123 of the 200 seats in the 2024 elections to form a conservative “blue-line” faction within the Senate, underscoring the credibility of its conservative brand.

Initial polls showed the reformist PP leading with the BJT and PT trailing closely behind. For context, the PP is the third reincarnation of the Future Forward Party (FFP) which gained prominence after the 2019 election for performing much better than expected for a new party. For this election, the PP has stated that it will not support a second-term PT government. The PP relies on most of its support from young and urban voters and looked as good as ever to challenge the surging BJT for national power, considering that its predecessor the MFP had won the most seats in the 2023 general election. The PT, on the other hand, was expected to see a decline in its electoral support. Many saw this election as a battle between conservative and reformist forces, though the usual issues with corruption, national security, the state of the economy, and scam centers weighed heavily as well.

Democratic “Spoilers” in Thailand

Unlike Japan, Thailand is an electoral autocracy. Powerful veto institutions are “baked” into the political system, including a Senate with confirmation powers and a Constitutional Court that is pliant to conservative interests. Indeed, this same court oversaw the dissolution of the MFP and the removals of PT Prime Ministers Srettha Thavisin in 2024 and Paetongtarn Shinawatra in 2025. The 2017 Constitution drafted by the military includes electorally unaccountable provisions to shape government formation and discipline elected officials, including avenues to block or reverse electoral outcomes. There are no indications that these institutions will not be wielded should there be an unfavorable election outcome. The voter turnout for this poll stood at around 65 percent, which is significantly lower than in 2023.

Results of the Thai Election

The BJT won 193 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives. It is reported that this is the first time that a conservative party has won a general election in the 21st century, underscoring the significance of the victory. The PP, on the other hand, came second with 118 seats and the PT with a distant 74 seats. While the PP did worse than expected, it nonetheless took all 33 seats in Bangkok and handily topped the separate ballot for party preference. The PP will likely not form an alliance with the BJT while the PT has left its options open. In this context, the PP will likely be the principal opposition in the Lower House. The BJT, consistent with its pragmatism, has not expressed its intentions yet. A simple majority of 251 seats is required in Thailand to elect a prime minister to form the next government.

Party System Change in Thailand?

The current electoral system, where MPs are elected from mixed single-member constituencies and a closed-list proportional system, gives the BJT a significant advantage over smaller parties and large parties that are deinstitutionalizing (like the PT in its current state). The idea is simple: the constituency system rewards parties and leaders with deep local and grassroots organization while the party-list system encourages voters to pick major parties who they believe should form the government. The disciplined expansion and penetration of the BJT’s party organization in the central, southern and northeastern regions over the last decade allows it to knock out the PT and Democrat Party in their traditional areas of influence. In this regard, the party is a direct beneficiary of the PV system because the PV system is non-proportional in practice.

Another factor behind the BJT’s massive success is its handling of the border conflict with Cambodia, which induced a powerful “rallying effect”. There are two potential issues with this phenomenon: the first is this rallying may set a precedent when ruling parties abuse it to bolster their own support, as Vladimir Putin has with the Russo-Ukrainian War. Another is the internalization of security anxiety, as even the PP has scaled down its opposition to arms procurement amid the hostilities. In any case, the BJT’s martial aura adds to its current positional advantage, setting it apart from the PP which seeks military reform and the PT which has been seen as overly yielding to Cambodia at the expense of national interests.

So, is a party system change in the making? After the ratification of the 1997 Constitution, the emergence of Thaksin’s TRT augured in a new party system based around populist appeals to the rural and grassroots population. This program was so successful that the 2006 coup intended to curtail its influence did not stop the reincarnations of the TRT from participating in elections and further “freezing” partisanship along class and regional lines. After another military coup in 2014, however, voter preferences began to shift towards issues regarding the role of the military in politics. From 2019 onwards, reformist parties, chiefly represented by the FFP/MFP/PP, began to take up higher shares of the national vote, with its popularity peaking in 2023. While the dissolution of the FFP and MFP did not hinder its warpath against the military and royalist establishments, the results of this year’s election may have revealed the lower or “soft” limits of the reformist agenda and the growing value of a nationalist one, even if only momentarily.

Conclusion

General elections in Japan and Thailand have ended in nationalist victories. This should come as no surprise. The LDP has utilized all levers of incumbency power to secure reelection while the BJT has laid out a path to power in near textbook fashion. It is likely that the international system in its current unstable form will continue to empower conservative parties vying for power or conservative parties in power, as it has done in Europe. This comes as mass publics are more eager for political stability than progressive reform in government institutions.

Foo Siew Jack is Research Associate at HELP University, where he is currently working on a book about federal-state relations in Malaysia. His written works have been featured in the East Asia Forum, Eurasia Review, Daily Sun Bangladesh and Stratsea. He was most recently cited in a report produced by the East Asia Institute in South Korea. He holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Nottingham and a BASocSc in Global Studies from Monash University.

[1] Also known as the Mixed Member Majoritarian (MMM) system.