Tough times for Kishida ahead of LDP election

Though the election for the post of president of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is more than two months away, several big shots have thrown down the gauntlet to current leader and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Former LDP secretary-general Shigeru Ishiba and Digital Transformation Minister Taro Kono have made it clear that they are vying for the top job in the ruling party.

Ryota Takeda, the former minister for internal affairs and communication, organized a dinner on July 1 for Ishiba and former prime minister Yoshihide Suga, who has openly urged Kishida to step aside following his handling of a political fundraising scandal, saying the prime minister should take responsibility for it, the Nippon News Network reported.

Ishiba is expected to get the faction-less members led by Suga and folks from the faction chaired by another of LDP's former secretary-general Toshihiro Nikai on board. The Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese national daily, considers both Suga and Nikai as kingmakers in the LDP.

Ishiba has unsuccessfully run for LDP president four times in the past.

Japan's major newspaper Asahi Shimbun said Ishiba, who enjoys broad support of the party's rank and file, may hold an advantage over other candidates this time as criticism continues over the LDP's dependency on factional politics. Ishiba does not belong to any faction.

A Kyodo News poll earlier this month showed that only 10.4 percent of the respondents want Kishida to be re-elected. Ishiba is seen as the most suitable replacement, with 26.2 percent of respondents supporting him.

Meanwhile, the LDP is desperate to repair its image tarnished by a high-profile political fundraising scandal involving the party's factions.

The scandal, in which some LDP lawmakers are alleged to have received thousands of dollars in unreported funds, poses one of the biggest challenges for the party.

In the aftermath of the scandal, the ruling party lost three lower house seats in the by-elections in April. It won two races and lost six in Sunday's by-elections for the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, falling way short of the party's goal of four or more wins.

Liu Jiangyong, professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, said the scandal has caused a stir in Japan's politics. "It is not a one-off case but a collective infraction of the Political Funds Control Act by the higher-ups in the LDP factions," the Japan expert said.

"As the LDP has a super-majority in Japan, its politicians dare to defy public opinion," Liu added.

Kishida is also facing strong headwind from within his party.

Pollsters of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper found in mid-June that among the LDP chapters around Japan, only those in three prefectures supported Kishida's re-election, and five prefectures made their objections clear. Eight prefectures said it was hard to answer, while 31 refused to answer.

The newspaper believed that the 39 prefectures had made their euphemistic opposition to Kishida's re-election clear.

Xiang Haoyu, a research fellow in the Department for Asia-Pacific Security and Cooperation at the China Institute of International Studies, said the "unusual public discontent "Suga has spoken about drove home the point that Kishida is losing support in the LDP.

"Suga's remarks showed a heightened sense of crisis in the party," Xiang added.

As an LDP heavyweight, Suga should have been backing the Kishida administration. In September 2021, when Suga resigned as prime minister, Kishida was elected LDP leader with Suga's support, Xiang said.

Harumi Arima, an independent Japanese political commentator, said, "The LDP is increasingly worried that the party under Kishida's leadership might be ousted in the next general election."

The current four-year term of the lower house will expire in October 2025, unless the prime minister dissolves the chamber.

The Sankei Shimbun does not expect 67-year-old Ishiba to be the dramatic change the LDP needs to restore public trust. "There is hope that a new star will emerge from among female, mid-career, or younger members," it said.

The newspaper named former Policy Research Council chairman Koichi Hagiuda, former chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato, former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa as the possible new stars.

Meanwhile, all public opinion polls are showing record-low support for the Kishida administration, which is dealing with its most serious crisis ever.

In the June 28-30 Nikkei Shimbun survey, the approval rating for Kishida's Cabinet stood at 25 percent, 3 percentage points down from May.

Approval rating of 30 percent is a threshold widely recognized as the "danger level" for a government in Japan. If it comes down to 20 percent, the cabinet is supposed to resign, according to Kyodo News Agency.

However, Kishida, whose current term as LDP president is set to expire in September, remains eager to seek re-election.

In response to the fundraising scandal, Kishida disbanded his faction to set an example for others, while punishing several veteran lawmakers.

But people in Japan are not satisfied.

The Mainichi Shimbun's editorial criticized the revision to the Political Funds Control Act passed in the ordinary session of the Diet, Japan's parliament, that ended on June 21 for being "full of loopholes" and falling "far short of sweeping reform". The LDP's "inability to clean up its act" and the "dysfunction" of the Kishida administration have been exposed, it said.

caihong@chinadaily.com.cn