2026 Japanese general election
Early general elections are scheduled to be held in Japan on 8 February 2026 to elect all 465 seats of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet. Voting will take place in all constituencies, including proportional blocks, to elect all 465 members of the House of Representatives.
The election will be held four months into Sanae Takaichi's tenure as Prime Minister of Japan, which began on 21 October after she won the 2025 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election and formed the Liberal Democratic Party–Japan Innovation Party coalition.
Background
Resignation of Shigeru Ishiba
The 2024 Japanese general election and 2025 Japanese House of Councillors election both resulted in the loss of majorities for the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito governing coalition under Prime Minister Ishiba. After both elections, Ishiba invoked a parliamentary plurality in both houses, and believed the LDP had a responsibility to lead the government, as it would in most other parliamentary democracies. Pressure continued to mount on Ishiba to resign as the LDP president, but he refused and said he planned to continue serving as Prime Minister.On 7 September, Ishiba announced that he would resign as president of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Ishiba stated he sought to claim "responsibility" as party leader for losses in recent elections, and to avoid dividing the party. Ishiba's announcement effectively cancelled the emergency election process entirely. He instead instructed LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama, whose resignation had not been accepted by Ishiba, to begin the process to hold an extraordinary presidential election. Ishiba said he determined now was the "appropriate time" to step aside, after a written version of the Japan–U.S. tariff agreement had been finalized. Ishiba promised to continue serving as Prime Minister until a new leader was elected, and did not endorse a candidate in the subsequent election. His tenure lasted about one year. In the LDP leadership election on 5 October, Takaichi was elected as the LDP's first woman president. In her first acts as party president, Takaichi appointed Tarō Asō as vice president and Shun'ichi Suzuki as secretary-general of the LDP.
Premiership of Sanae Takaichi
On 10 October, Komeito chief representative Tetsuo Saito announced that it would leave the ruling coalition, over disagreements with Takaichi's leadership and the party's handling of the 2023–2024 Japanese slush fund scandal, ending 26 years of the LDP–Komeito coalition. Following this, the vote to confirm Takaichi as prime minister was delayed to 20 October. On 20 October, Takaichi and the Japan Innovation Party leader Hirofumi Yoshimura agreed to sign a coalition agreement. Takaichi was elected prime minister by the Diet on 21 October, with the support of Ishin and independents, and the right-wing conservative coalition was formed.Early election call
On 13 January 2026, it emerged that Takaichi had communicated her intention to dissolve the House of Representatives when it re-convened on 23 January to senior LDP officials. Subsequently, the LDP instructed its prefectural chapters to register general election candidates by 19 January. Japanese national broadcaster NHK reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications had instructed prefectural election boards to prepare for a general election. In response to an apparently leaked LDP projection of the results of an election, LDP officials said that "260 seats seems like too much in reality", and that "within the party, it's assumed that at least a single majority of 233 seats will be won".On 19 January, Takaichi officially announced her intention to dissolve the House of Representatives on 23 January at a press conference. Campaigning would begin on 27 January, with election day on 8 February.
CDP–Komeito merge
In response to the reports of an imminent election, the CDP considered forming a new political alliance with opposition parties to run a single proportional representation list against the LDP, potentially including Komeito, who previously had a 26-year alliance with the governing LDP. The CDP also instructed its prefectural chapters to meet with Komeito's local organisations, and Diet members to seek electoral cooperation. On 14 January, it was found that the cooperation between the CDP and Komeito had begun with view to a merger of the two parties. The merged party would caucus separately in the House of Councillors, but operate as a single party in the House of Representatives, with current CDP leader Yoshihiko Noda and Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito serving as co-leaders. The merged party's proposed name was Chūdō Kaikaku, before its official name was finalised as Chūdō Kaikaku Rengō. Saito said that Noda would be named prime minister if the Centrist Reform Alliance won the election.Komeito also announced it would not contest any constituency seats in favour of running in the proportional blocks. Jiji Press created a model of the constituency seats which projected that the LDP would win 97 constituency seats and the CDP would win 139 with the results of the 2024 election. Nippon Television projected that, with a hypothetical CDP–Komeito merger, the LDP would retain just 60 of its 132 single member districts with the 2024 election. As a result of this merger, the new Centrist Reform Alliance would now have 172 seats in the National Diet, thus significantly weakening the LDP's already fragile grip on power.
Electoral system
The 465 seats of the House of Representatives are contested via parallel voting. Of these, 289 members are elected in single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting, while 176 members are elected in 11 multi-member constituencies via party list proportional representation. Candidates from parties with legal political party-list, which requires either ≥5 Diet members or ≥1 Diet member and ≥2% of the nationwide vote in one tier of a recent national election, are allowed to stand in a constituency and be present on the party list. If they lose their constituency vote, they may still be elected in the proportionally allocated seats; however, if such a dual candidate wins less than 10% of the vote in their majoritarian constituency, they are also disqualified as a proportional candidate.Political parties
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Campaign
Riding on the high approval ratings of her cabinet, the snap election was seen as a power move to boost Sanae Takaichi's mandate and gain a majority in the lower house, which was only one seat away if including the Nippon Ishin No Kai. Takaichi also announced that she would resign as prime minister if the ruling bloc did not win a majority. The LDP was campaigning on its promises of increased spending, tax cuts, in the name of "responsible yet aggressive fiscal policy", and a new security strategy by abolishing the "five categories" which restricted defence equipment exports to non-combat purposes. The party also looked to tighten rules on foreign acquisition of housing and land, in order to woo the conservative voters.Despite being the largest opposition party after the merge, the Centrist Reform Alliance target of changing the government apparently faded into the background given the prevalent multi-party situation which made it difficult for a single party to gain a majority. The coalition aimed to accelerating political restructuring, with the possibility of the Democratic Party for the People and part of the LDP joining the coalition after the election in mind. Komeito candidates only ran in proportional representation seats in this election, with its voters' inclination becoming a focus of attention due to the previously longstanding cooperative relationship with the LDP. The party campaigned on "putting ordinary citizens first and their livelihoods at the center" and lowering the consumption tax on food to zero, as well as the LDP slush fund scandal, by proposing stricter rules on corporate and group donations.
Nippon Ishin No Kai, LDP coalition partner, recommended LDP candidates in over 80 constituencies. The reports of an election prompted both Yoshimura and Hideyuki Yokoyama to resign from their posts with the aim of running for re-election alongside the general election, as well as to seek endorsement of the Osaka Metropolis Plan. The party said to carry out reforms that the LDP had not been able to implement, with the focus on national security, economic security and economic growth and the aim to reduce consumption tax on food to zero.
The right-leaning DPP, which gained significant ground in the 2025 Japanese House of Councillors election, pledged to ensure that everyone's take-home pay would be increased by 60,000 yen per year. It also called for consumption tax reduction to 5% until wage growth stabilised at 2% above inflation.
The Japan Communist Party called for immediate cut of consumption tax to 5% and its eventual abolition, while sought to legalise the option of separate surnames for married couples and same-sex marriage, as well as correcting the gender pay gap, while the left-wing pacifist Reiwa Shinsengumi is campaigning on abolishing the consumption tax, providing a stopgap cash payment of 100,000 yen, lowering social insurance premiums and not participating in the war business.
On 24 January, two new minor right-wing parties, Tax Cuts Japan and Yukoku Alliance and the New Unionist Party, were announced by former MPs Kazuhiro Haraguchi and Takashi Kawamura, along with the independents. Five incumbent MPs have joined the party, qualifying it for national party status. The party also campaigned on abolishing the consumption tax and investing in developing hypersonic missiles.
Sohei Kamiya, the leader of the far-right "Japanese First" political party Sanseitō, said that the party plans to field candidates in LDP constituencies where the incumbent has "advocated multicultural coexistence". It campaigned on abolishing the consumption tax, while also opposing the "excessive acceptance of immigrants" by limiting their numbers.