By Satoshi Ogawa

8:00 JST, July 26, 2025

The July 20 House of Councillors election showed that the foundation of Japan’s political order has crumbled. Japan, which had been seen as the most stable democracy among the Group of Seven countries, has finally joined the political turbulence seen elsewhere in the world.

The election’s biggest impact on the current political situation, of course, is that the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, already a minority in the lower house, have now lost their majority in the upper house as well. But the long-term impact on Japan’s political scene will come from the rise of the conservative party Sanseito, whose “Japanese First” campaign pledges brought it rapid progress and enabled it to establish a bridgehead in the Diet.

Sanseito, which could be described as the Japanese version of the MAGA movement in the United States, won 14 seats in the election. The 7,425,053 votes it received in the proportional representation segment was the third highest total for any party, overtaking the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. It was a surprising leap. According to its web page, Sanseito was founded in 2020 with the idea that “there is no political party we want to vote for, so we will create one from scratch.” In the election campaign, it displayed right-wing stances including opposition to excessively accepting foreigners. The party’s founder and current leader, Sohei Kamiya, stressed in his street speeches: “Under the motto of ‘Japanese First,’ we will make Japanese wealthy. In order to do so, we........

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