By Motoko Rich and Hisako Ueno

TOKYO — Despite leading his party to big losses in a snap general election last month, Shigeru Ishiba, the prime minister of Japan, won a vote in parliament Monday (11) to carry on as the country’s leader.

Ishiba, whose Liberal Democratic Party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in 15 years, will effectively lead a minority government.

The result puts Ishiba in a precarious position as his government continues to deal with the aftermath of a political finance scandal, along with inflation, labour shortages and the increasing burdens of an ageing population. Analysts said Ishiba could struggle to survive in the long term, putting Japan at risk of returning to a revolving door of prime ministers just as it prepares to grapple with increased unpredictability in the United States, its most important international ally, following the re-election of Donald Trump as president.

In a runoff election with the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, Japan’s largest opposition group, Ishiba defeated Yoshihiko Noda, a former prime minister, 221-160. Ishiba was elected prime minister in September.

Although the Constitutional Democrats made significant gains in last month’s election, they did not win a majority in the lower house of parliament, which would have given them the right to select the prime minister. With seven other small opposition parties fielding leadership candidates, Noda could not amass enough unified support to unseat Ishiba.

With nearly 1 in 5 members of the lower house declining to cast a vote for either candidate in the runoff, Ishiba has a fragile hold on power.

At a news briefing late Monday evening, Ishiba said the minority government “may be desirable for democracy,” as the various parties would have to consult more closely.

“Please don’t misunderstand,” he said. “It’s not that I’m saying it’s desirable that the ruling bloc lost the majority, but it’s desirable because the discussions will become in-depth and intricate and detailed.”

The prime minister also vowed to revise political finance laws in Japan to increase transparency and supervision.

Ever since he was first chosen as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Ishiba’s approval ratings have steadily declined. With upper house elections coming next summer, the Liberal Democrats “may try to change the book cover” and push out Ishiba in favour of another leader, said Mieko Nakabayashi, a professor of politics at Waseda University in Tokyo.

The domestic political instability could undermine Japan’s international leadership role at a time its steadying hand could be necessary.

Under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan was able to act as a stabilizer in the Pacific in part because Abe was in office for most of Trump’s first term.

During that time, Japan helped resuscitate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a broad trade pact from which Trump withdrew on his first weekday in office in 2017. Japan spearheaded the concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific, embraced by several democratic allies around the Pacific Rim to cooperate in holding back territorial expansion by China in the South China Sea. Japan also invested in infrastructure projects in Southeast Asian countries as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which enlisted China’s economic might to enhance its geopolitical interests.

If Ishiba heralds an era of short-term prime ministers, that instability could “have a direct impact on Japan’s ability to exert leadership in foreign policy,” said Phillip Lipscy, professor of political science and director of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the University of Toronto.

“Given that Ishiba is in such a precarious domestic political situation, it makes it much more challenging for Japan to formulate an effective strategy in managing what’s likely to be an extremely volatile period in US-Japan relations coming up,” Lipscy said.

In his remarks to the press, Ishiba said his government “needs to make sure it’s not going to be a face-to-face clash” between American and Japanese interests when Trump resumes office. “We need to make sure there is going to be a synergy for each other and that Japan can make a proposal for peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” Ishiba said.

A scandal ruffled the election Monday after a tabloid magazine reported that Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Democratic Party for the People, which analysts speculated might join the Liberal Democrats in a coalition government, had recently had an extramarital affair.

In a hastily called news conference Monday morning, Tamaki acknowledged the liaison and said he had gotten “carried away” and “had reflected on it very much.” The revelations seemed to have little effect on his performance in the leadership election, in which all members of his party voted for him as prime minister in the lower house during the first round of voting.

In the run-up to the leadership vote, Tamaki had publicly said he would not join a coalition government. Instead, he touted his intention to push Ishiba and the Liberal Democrats to accept some of Tamaki’s top policy priorities in exchange for his party’s support in other legislative votes.

Tamaki’s top agenda item is to push for an increase in a minimum tax deduction that would enlarge take-home pay for taxpayers. In a press briefing at the end of last month, Yoshimasa Hayashi, the chief Cabinet secretary, said this initiative could lose as much as 8 trillion yen (about $52 billion) in tax revenues or the equivalent of the Defence Ministry’s entire annual budget.

Analysts said that given the Liberal Democrats’ weak position, they will accommodate Tamaki’s proposals, even if the marital scandal might momentarily taint him. “Tamaki had been very adamant,” said Masaru Kohno, a political scientist at Waseda University in Tokyo. “I don’t think this is going to affect the way that the Democratic Party for the People is going to conduct its business.”

A budget compromise resulting in a decline in tax revenues could undermine Japan’s commitment to raise its defence budget to more than 2% of its gross domestic product.

That could cast a shadow over future conversations with Trump, who during his first presidential administration repeatedly harangued Japan and other allies for not paying what he considered to be enough for their own defence. Political experts had said Japan’s defence budget increase could help ameliorate some of Trump’s critiques.

“If you’re going to keep on increasing outlays, at some point, revenues have to increase to offset that,” said Koichi Nakano, a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University. “And currently it is not clear where those revenues are going to come from.”

Nakano said the Liberal Democrats might use the re-election of Trump as a justification for bolstering their power again.

It is “an excuse that there is no time for unstable, unpredictable weak government in Japan,” Nakano said. “Forget about the voters pronouncing a clear rejection of the LDP,” he added. Nakano predicted that the party and its media proxies were likely to say “This is not the time for that.”

-New York Times