Shinzo Abe's bet paid off.

With Japan sinking back into recession and the effectiveness of “Abenomics” called into serious question, the Japanese prime minister called a snap election two years early to secure a governing mandate.

Well, he got it. Shinzo Abe and his coalition partners got 68% of the vote, giving him the political support he needed — and four more years — to push through with his economic reforms.

Whether you can really call this a “popular mandate” is open to debate. Only 35% of Japanese voters bothered to show up, showing a remarkable amount of apathy, given how horrendously bad Japan's economy is.

New data showed that Japan's recession is even worse than thought. The Japanese economy shrank by an annualized 1.9% last quarter, rather than the 1.6% originally reported. And that drop follows the 7.3% implosion of the second quarter.

Effective or not, the election means that Abenomics will be in effect for at least another four years.

Here's why that victory doesn't matter.

Japan Has Serious Demographic Problems

I don't want to rag on Abe, and I'm actually very supportive of his reform agenda. But try as he might, Abe can never be Japan's Reagan or Thatcher. As sick as Britain and America were before the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions, the problems facing both countries were political. A politician with sufficient charisma (Reagan) or cojones (Thatcher) could have fixed them.

The issues Japan faces are not political; they're demographic.

Japan is the oldest country in the world with a quarter of its population already over the age of 65. Japan's population peaked seven years ago at 128 million and hasn't stopped shrinking since — Japan has about a million fewer citizens every year. By 2060, the Japanese government estimates that Japan's population will have shrunk to 87 million people, and as much as 40% will be older than 65.