Japan’s LDP rocked and roiled in an election earthquake

As political miscalculations go, it’s hard to top Shigeru Ishiba’s decision to hold a snap election Sunday, just 30 days after his own shock rise to Japan’s premiership.

Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority for only the third time since 1955. But this latest indignity for a party that long took for granted the priorities of Japan’s 125 million people could be the most impactful yet.

Ishiba’s blunder, and the political upheaval it’s causing, come amid a bewildering array of headwinds zooming the nation’s way.

They include slowing growth at home, China’s downshift, North Korea’s provocations and the increasing odds Americans will return Donald Trump and his trade wars to the White House.

It comes as Japanese inflation outpaces wages at a moment when the Bank of Japan mulls whether to continue hiking interest rates. It comes as investors assess whether the Nikkei 225 Stock Average’s surge to record highs is sustainable as policy instability reigns in Tokyo.

At the very least, Ishiba seems more destined than ever for short-timer status as Japanese leader following Sunday’s disastrous election showing for his LDP.

“Japan now enters a period of political uncertainty about whether a new coalition government can be formed,” says David Boling, analyst at Eurasia Group. Economist Takeshi Yamaguchi at Morgan Stanley MUFG adds that “political uncertainty will remain high in the near term.”

Granted, one silver lining for the LDP is that opposition parties didn’t join forces to win a majority or cobble together a governing coalition. Yet the best-case scenario for the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito is to find additional seats via a third party.

Still the damage has been done, particularly to Ishiba and his