Japan’s scandal-hit ruling party chooses Shigeru Ishiba as next prime minister

Japan’s ruling party has elected Shigeru Ishiba as its new leader, positioning the political veteran as Japan’s next prime minister.

Nine candidates were vying for leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan for most of the postwar era, after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last month that he would not stand would not represent.

Whoever is named the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will become Prime Minister since the LDP has a parliamentary majority.

The changing of the guard comes during a turbulent time for the party, which has been rocked by scandals and internal conflicts that have dissolved its once-powerful factions.

Ishiba, 63, leads most opinion polls, and this is his fifth and, he says, final attempt to lead the embattled LDP.

The winner was decided by an internal party vote rather than a public vote. The race began with nine candidates before ending in a runoff between Ishiba and Sanae Takaichi, who were vying to be Japan’s first female leader.

Ishiba favors allowing female emperors – a highly controversial issue that many LDP members and successive governments have opposed. His blunt frankness and public criticism of Prime Minister Kishida – a rarity in Japanese politics – angered party members while resonating with members of the public.

Takaichi, on the other hand, was one of two women vying for leadership of the LDP, but she was also among the more conservative candidates.

A close ally of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s positions on women’s issues are in line with the LDP’s policy of having women play their traditional roles as good mothers and wives. She opposed legislation allowing women to keep their maiden names as well as female emperors.

However, leading parties are pledging to reform the struggling LDP in the face of public fury and falling approval ratings.

“In the next presidential election, it is necessary to show the people that the Liberal Democratic Party will change,” Kishida said at a news conference last month, announcing his decision not to run for another term. .

The PLD leadership race is not only a race for top positions, but also an attempt to regain public trust that the party has lost in recent months amid economic stagnation, struggling households. difficulty and a series of political scandals.

Chief among these scandals are revelations about the extent of the Japanese Unification Church’s influence within the LDP, as well as suspicions that party factions underreported their funding. politics for several years.

The fallout from the political financing scandal led to the dissolution of five of the LDP’s six factions – factions that have long formed the backbone of the party and whose support is usually crucial to winning an LDP leadership election.

However, the country’s growing economic woes are perhaps more salient in the minds of the Japanese public.

In the wake of the Covid pandemic, average Japanese families are feeling the effects of a weak yen, a stagnant economy and food prices rising at the fastest pace in nearly half a century.

Meanwhile, data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that wages in Japan have barely changed in 30 years. This prolonged crisis, associated with the highest inflation in 30 years, is tightening the screws on Japanese households and prompting calls for government help.

It also harms the LDP’s historically favorable standing with voters.

“People are tired of the LDP,” Mieko Nakabayashi, a former opposition lawmaker and professor of political science at Waseda University in Tokyo, told the BBC. “They are frustrated by the inflation they are currently facing and the so-called ‘wasted 30 years’. The Japanese currency is weak, many imports have become expensive due to inflation, and many people are noticing this.

Another major item on the agenda is the issue of Japan’s aging and shrinking population, which is putting pressure on social and medical services and posing a real challenge to the country’s medium-sized workforce. and long term. Whoever takes charge of the LDP, and therefore the government, will need to rethink how Japan manages its labor market and whether it needs to change its attitude toward immigration.

This is a desperately needed recalibration in the run-up to Japan’s general election, which is expected to take place by October 2025 – or sooner, as some candidates have indicated. Koizumi, for example, said he would call a general election soon after the LDP vote.

The last two weeks of campaigning for the leadership of the PLD are considered by experts as a hearing for the general elections. It is for this reason that candidates present themselves not only to other party members but also to the public, with the aim of winning over the electorate.

“The public is changing,” Kunihiko Miyake, a visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto who has worked closely with Abe and Kishida, told the BBC. “It is time for conservative politics in this country to adapt to a new political environment and a new political battlefield.”

The other seven candidates in the first round were Shinjiro Koizumi, 43, the youngest candidate; Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, 71, who is the other female candidate; Minister of Digital Transformation Taro Kono, 61; Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, 63; Toshimitsu Motegi, 68, secretary general of the PLD; Takayuki Kobayashi, 49, former Minister of Economic Security; and Katsunobu Kato, 68, former chief cabinet secretary.

Four of the nine have served as foreign ministers; three as Minister of Defense.