Japan: As Kishida steps down amid sinking popularity, LDP faces a leadership crisis

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced that he will step down as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and consequently from the prime ministership of Japan. Kishida was elected as president of the LDP in October 2021, replacing Suga Yoshihide, who was an interim replacement of Abe Shinzo, the longest-serving Japanese Prime Minister since WWII. Kishida’s three-year term as LDP President ends in September 2024, when a new election for the post will ensue. There has been speculation whether Kishida would seek another term or will other leaders emerge.

Kishida had won an internal agreement that he would be allowed to conduct the G7 summit in Hiroshima in June 2023 unimpeded, after which domestic political concerns would take over. Kishida’s decision to opt out of the race for the LDP presidency is based on four major factors.

First is the plummeting popularity of his administration. In July 2024, this stood at 15.5 per cent, a new record low level since the LDP returned to power in December 2012. According to a Jiji press opinion poll, this was a further fall of about 1 per cent from June. The disapproval rate of the Kishida cabinet was at 58.4 per cent and 39.3 per cent of respondents were expecting a change of leadership of the LDP, though most of them wanted the LDP to stay in power. As many as 35.2 per cent of people not supporting the Kishida administration had expressed pessimism for the cabinet, and 25 per cent had expressed distrust of Kishida, while another 25 per cent were dismissive of his policies; those supporting specifics in his favour were all under 10 per cent.

With such abysmal figures, the LDP is justifiably concerned that its prospects in the next election would be severely impacted. The second aspect is that the continuing negative impact from the scandal of financing sections of the LDP continues to reverberate. The public criticism of Kishida’s handling of this scandal has continued the slide in the LDP fortunes. Kishida’s government had amended the political fund control law to prevent unregulated funds flowing into LDP factions.They attempted to strengthen the responsibility of legislators for contributions received by their factions and laid out lower disclosure levels and rules for revealing the names of people who buy high-priced tickets for fundraising events. Neither the public nor the LDP were impressed. Besides this, Kishida had attempted to overcome the old factions, both by acting within the LDP and by reshuffling his cabinet. He dissolved his own faction and packed off several strong party leaders, most of whom came from the dominant Abe faction, which is now a bit in disarray.

Kishida himself had been elected because of the Abe faction’s backing, since his own faction was not strong enough to win. His efforts to reduce the influence of typical faction leaders did weaken the factions but also weakened the way the LDP is run. Ambitious leaders were not curbed adequately. There is definitely an element that such disempowered leaders within the LDP have made Kishida’s continuation difficult, and evidently Kishida got enough hints that the faction leaders, who may now be informally organised, would not back him with a majority.

Recent domestic events have also jolted Kishida. The unprecedented megaquake warning prevented his departure for a Central Asia meeting, which was a diplomatic initiative of his. Now, at the time of his announcement on August 14, he also announced a break in his diplomatic engagements. This could impact the forthcoming India-Japan Two Plus Two, where the Japanese foreign and defence ministers are expected in New Delhi. With domestic politics in flux, senior ministers may not want to leave the country.

Kishida has not waited for an announcement of the date of the LDP presidential election to announce his unwillingness to participate. He has done so in the middle of the mid-year Obon holiday season, where most Japanese are away to their hometowns and political activity is at a low ebb. At 67, Kishida is not old, but he is now making a virtue of his political actions to clean up the LDP, which he failed to revitalise. ‘It is necessary to firmly present a newly born LDP to the people’, is what Kishida said while making his announcement.

By stepping down and offering his sacrifice, he believes that he will open the way for a new LDP leader to consolidate the party with a clean image and lead it for the next elections. As late as June 21, Kishida had said that he would continue in office and deliver results on the challenges that he faced, but over the last two months, his ability to consolidate internal party support, after his effort to clean them up, has evidently not led to success.

The effort now is to show that the LDP has a new leadership, and it will try and win back popular confidence in themselves and in the political system. They would also attempt to deal with governance issues, which include adapting to the digital age, dealing with the continuing decline in the birth rate and ageing of Japanese society, and fulfilling the commitment that Japan has made to the US to be a global partner with rising defence capabilities.

Kishida has been the eighth Japanese prime minister since the end of WWII to complete 1,000 days in office, he could complete his three-year term as LDP president as well, which many are not so fortunate to have done. Kishida had taken the LDP to an election victory in the lower house of the Diet in October 2021, soon after taking over the LDP presidency. In July 2022, while he was the LDP president, it also won the election to the upper house of councillors. More recently, the LDP had lost bye elections to three lower house seats in April 2024. Will the LDP be able to provide new leadership? One of the efforts being made is to have more women candidates. Economic security minister TakaIchi Sanai and Noda Seko are two women who earlier contested the LDP presidency but lost; they now are likely to try again to add the diversity element to the race, but both will struggle to get the backing of 20 diet members of the LDP to back them since there is a plethora of other candidates similarly seeking backing in an open race.

Former defence minister, Ishiba Shigeru, seems to be the most popular face and is likely to run again. He has also been the Secretary General of the LDP. The current digital minister, Kono Taro, who is seen as reformist and social media savvy, is also expected to be a candidate. Other names that are mentioned are those of former economic security minister, Kobayash Takayuki; former environment minister, Koizumi Shinjiro; LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi; and Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko. The new leader of the LDP will become the next prime minister as the LDP has a majority in the Diet. The next general election is a year away, in October 2025.

The author is a former ambassador to Germany, Indonesia, Ethiopia, ASEAN and the African Union. He tweets @AmbGurjitSingh. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.