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

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

Nine candidates are vying for leadership of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last month that he would not run for re-election.

Since the Liberal Democratic Party has a majority in parliament, whoever is appointed as the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party will become prime minister.

The change comes at a turbulent time for the party, which has seen scandals and internal strife dissolve its once-powerful factions.

Ishiba, 67, who leads most polls, is making his fifth and final bid to lead the embattled Liberal Democratic Party.

The winner is determined by a party vote, not a public vote. The race started with nine candidates before moving to a runoff between Ishiba Shigeru and Takaichi Sanae, who are vying to become Japan’s first female leader.

Ishiba favors allowing a female emperor – a controversial issue opposed by many members of the Liberal Democratic Party and successive governments. His outspoken and public criticism of Prime Minister Kishida – a rarity in Japanese politics – has ruffled feathers among his party colleagues while also resonating with the public.

Takaichi, on the other hand, is one of two women vying for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party, but is also one of the more conservative candidates.

A close ally of late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s stance on women’s issues is in line with the Liberal Democratic Party’s policy of allowing women to fulfill their traditional roles as mothers and wives. She opposed legislation that allowed women to keep their maiden names and that allowed female emperors.

However, the front-runners are united in their pledge to overhaul the embattled Liberal Democratic Party in the face of public anger and plummeting support.

“In the upcoming presidential election, it is necessary to show people that the LDP will change,” Kishida said at a news conference last month when he announced he would not run for re-election.

The LDP leadership battle is not only a party leadership battle, but also an attempt to regain public trust.

Chief among the scandals were revelations about the influence of Japan’s controversial Unification Church within the Liberal Democratic Party and suspicions that party factions had underreported political funding for years.

The fallout from the political funding scandal has led to the dissolution of five of the LDP’s six factions, which have long been the party’s mainstay and whose support is often crucial to winning LDP leadership elections.

Perhaps more prominent in the minds of Japanese people, however, is the country’s growing economic woes.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, ordinary Japanese households have been feeling the pinch of a weak yen, a stagnant economy and food prices soaring at the fastest pace in nearly half a century.

Meanwhile, data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that wages in Japan have barely changed in 30 years. A protracted recession, combined with three decades of high inflation, is adding to pressure on Japanese households and prompting calls for government assistance.

It also hurts the LDP’s historically favorable position among voters.

“People are tired of the LDP,” Mieko Nakabayashi, a former opposition lawmaker and political science professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University, told the BBC. “They are frustrated with the inflation they are facing and the so-called ‘lost 30 years.’ The yen is lower and many imported goods are becoming more expensive due to inflation, and many people are seeing this.

Another major agenda item is Japan’s aging and shrinking population, which is putting pressure on social and health services and posing real challenges for the country’s workforce in the medium to long term. Whoever runs the Liberal Democratic Party and the government must rethink how Japan operates its labor market and whether it should change its attitude toward immigrants.

It’s a much-needed reset ahead of Japan’s general election, scheduled for October 2025, or sooner, as some candidates have suggested. For example, Koizumi has said that he will call a general election soon after the LDP campaign.

Experts see the final two weeks of the LDP leadership campaign as an audition for a general election. Therefore, candidates present themselves not only to party members but also to the public in an attempt to win the support of voters.

“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’s time for conservative politics in this country to adapt to a new political environment and political battlefield.”

The other seven candidates in the first round are Shinjiro Koizumi, 43, the youngest candidate; the other female candidate is Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, 71; Digital Transformation Minister Taro Kono, 61; the Secretariat of the Cabinet Chief Hayashi Yoshimasa, 63 years old; Toshimitsu Motegi, 68 years old, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party; Takayuki Kobayashi, 49 years old, former Minister of Economic and Security; Katsunobu Kato, 68 years old, former Cabinet Secretariat Sir.

Four of the nine served as foreign ministers; three served as defense ministers.