Oct 04 (East Asia Forum) - On 27 September, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Shigeru Ishiba as its new leader from an unprecedentedly large field of nine contenders. He succeeded Fumio Kishida as prime minister on 1 October, and has called an election for 27 October. After suffering defeats in four previous party leadership elections, how did Ishiba win this time?
The LDP leadership contest took place against the backdrop of the party’s worst opinion polling since it returned to power in 2012, mostly due to slush fund scandals involving a large number of the party’s legislators. Factions — which had dominated the party since its founding and played a decisive role in both candidate selection and allocation of cabinet posts — were mostly dissolved in the wake of these revelations.
All previous LDP elections were largely determined by factional dynamics, and Ishiba’s lack of support from powerful factions doomed his previous tilts at party leadership to failure. The disbanding of most factions earlier in 2024 left legislators free to make their own choices in last week’s vote, though factional influences were not entirely absent.
LDP leaders are chosen by both ordinary party members and legislators. If no candidate wins an outright majority in the first round, the top two qualify for a runoff in which the value of legislators’ votes far outweighs that of rank-and-file members’. Ishiba has long been popular among party members, the runoff mechanism has worked to his disadvantage in the past — if the leader were chosen by party members alone, he would have become LDP leader and prime minister in 2012.
The slush fund scandals and the LDP’s unpopularity in the polls likely contributed to Ishiba’s victory. He has not occupied a cabinet or party position since 2015. His image as a maverick was fostered by the distance he kept from former prime minister Shinzo Abe and hs open criticisms of successive LDP administrations, including over the recent scandals. Such stances earned him the hostility of many fellow LDP MPs, but the recognition and support from the public at large.
According to a poll by the public broadcaster NHK in early September, Ishiba was the top choice among respondents at 28 per cent, followed by former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi at 23 per cent and the remaining seven candidates all scoring below 10 per cent. The Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers reported similar results. Given that it was assumed whoever won the LDP leadership race would call a snap election — as Ishiba has done — LDP legislators had an obvious interest in saving their seats by putting forward a popular leader.
Ishiba was also fortunate with regards to his runoff opponent. Koizumi, also popular with the general public, was eliminated in the initial round of voting. Ishiba came in second, and faced the first-placed economic security minister Sanae Takaichi. Seen as a protege of former prime minister Abe, the hard-right Takaichi served in several cabinet and prominent party posts throughout the last decade. Had Abe been alive, his influence might have tipped the balance in Takaichi’s favour.
In choosing Ishiba, who has been in parliament since 1986, the LDP opted for experience and stability over breaking new ground. At 43, Koizumi would have been Japan’s youngest postwar prime minister by far. Takaichi would have been the nation’s first female leader, though her views on gender roles — for example, opposing women ascending the imperial throne or retaining their maiden name after marriage — would not have made her a feminist trailblazer. Indeed, Takaichi’s socially conservative and nationalistic stances likely worked to her disadvantage.
Some legislators who may not be enthusiastic about Ishiba cast their ballots for him in the runoff — he is seen to appeal to the median voter. Yet Ishiba’s room for policy manoeuvre is limited, since his relatively weak support base among LDP legislators compels him to give important cabinet positions to his leadership contest rivals, such as Hayashi Yoshimasa as Chief Cabinet Secretary and Kato Katsunobu as Finance Minister. To bolster his support within the LDP, Ishiba also tapped two former prime ministers to serve in high party positions.
Ishiba may play a more active role in foreign affairs and defence, given his expertise in these areas, but there is little reason to expect major policy shifts. His new government is likely to follow the Kishida administration’s goals of doubling the defence budget and rapprochement with South Korea.
In 1974, a scandal-tainted LDP replaced increasingly unpopular prime minister Kakuei Tanaka with Takeo Miki, an outsider within the party viewed as clean from corruption. Miki’s term as prime minister was marked by internal party intrigues, followed by a disappointing election result that forced his resignation. Japan’s 27 October snap election will reveal whether history is repeated half a century later.
Willy Jou is Associate Professor at Waseda University, where he specialises in comparative politics of East Asian democracies.
