Japan goes to the polls this Sunday. At issue is whether Prime Minister Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will be routed in the forthcoming election and lose control of the Upper House. That the ruling LDP will be severely punished by the electorate is due to a series of mishaps by the Abe Administration: the wide-scale pension fiasco in which contributions were not properly recorded and pensioners not paid according to their entitlements; and the gaffes and financial scandals surrounding Abe's ministers resulting in two resignations and a suicide.

Abe himself has turned out to be a grave disappointment. When he first became Prime Minister, he garnered support from at least two thirds of the Japanese public. However, his popularity rating went into free fall after he readmitted many 'postal rebels' purged by his predecessor Koizumi Junichiro who tried to wean the LDP from pork barrel politics (including funds from the post office's piggy bank). By embracing the opponents to Koizumi's structural reforms, Abe could no longer claim to be a reformer wearing the mantle of Koizumi --- postwar Japan's most popular Prime Minister.

Although Abe's popularity recovered a little after Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's visit to Japan helped to thaw the icy relations between Beijing and Tokyo, the pension fiasco which broke out irreparably damaged the credibility of the Abe Administration. To many voters, the half measures adopted by the Abe Administration to address the fiasco were simply a case of too little, too late.

Moreover, Abe's rightwing legislative agenda (promoting patriotism among Japanese students, upgrading the Defence Agency into a Ministry of Defence, and preparing a law to permit a referendum to revise the pacifist constitution) and a hard line policy against North Korea over the latter's abduction of Japanese citizens (but leaving Tokyo isolated after Washington cut a deal with Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program) is out of synchrony with the majority of the electorate who are more concerned with bread and butter issues, especially the pension fiasco.

If the LDP were to lose badly in the forthcoming Upper House Election, Abe's fate as Prime Minister will hang in the balance. After all, LDP Prime Ministers have resigned before to take responsibility for their party's poor showing at the polls. However, a big loss by the LDP will have an importance beyond whether Abe remains as Prime Minister or not.

First, if Abe, the darling of many Japanese right wingers within and outside the LDP, were to fall, the prestige and credibility of the right will be severely dented. The ideological pendulum in Japanese politics will then swing from the hawkish right to the mainstream centre which is less animated by agenda such as constitutional revisions (especially the no-war clause of Article 9) to permit a 'normal' Japan to deploy its troops abroad to engage in collective security. If this scenario were to come to pass, the Japanese rightwing will be cut to size somewhat, but not necessarily out of the picture. It will continue to wage a cultural civil war for the ideological soul and identity of Japan in the years ahead.

Second, the policymaking process of Japan will become even more fractured. Although the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition dominates the Lower House, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and other opposition parties are likely to control the Upper House after Sunday. The ruling coalition will no longer habitually ram its bills pass the Lower and Upper Houses and must negotiate and grant concessions to the opposition parties if bills were are to sail smoothly pass both Houses. Since the ruling coalition has a two-thirds majority in the Lower House, it can theoretically override the veto of the Upper House. However, political convention and societal norms in Japan dictate that compromise and consensus dominate the process of legislation formation. If the ruling coalition were to insist on overriding the Upper House all the time through the sheer weight of numbers in the Lower House, it will lead to a backlash from the opposition parties, which will retaliate by behaving in a disruptive way in both Houses. On the other hand, horse-trading with the opposition will slow down if not water down policy-making outputs.

Third, a major victory by the DPJ will further consolidate the 'two party plus' system of Japan. Since the 1996 Lower House Election, which was contested after reforms to the electoral system, the Japanese party system has gravitated around two big parties --- the perennial party in power, the LDP, and the main opposition party, the DPJ. The Komeito will be the smaller third party which may well hold the casting vote in Japanese politics with the option of joining either of the two major parties as a coalition partner in power.

Fourth, a severe beating at the forthcoming polls may stimulate younger LDP politicians to leave the LDP 'dinosaur' and forge a new conservative party with like-minded younger politicians from the DPJ. In this scenario of a party realignment, these younger politicians from both parties will rally around the flag of market reforms, efficiency and growth, more attention to urban interests, and Japan as a 'normal' state in international affairs. In contradistinction, the rump of the LDP and DPJ can conceivably form another party which emphasises welfare for the weak, protection of rural interests and a minimalist security role in foreign affairs.

However the polls play out at the weekend, the LDP's last trump card is Koizumi. Out of desperation, the ruling party might well turn to the charismatic Koizumi to be its saviour once again. But after serving as Prime Minister for five years and having succeeded in achieving his pet project of postal reforms, Koizumi might not wish to return to office again. With the moribund LDP at the helm, Japan will then be mired in uncharted waters while rising China continues to steam ahead.