Ishiba takes the prize but faces big obstacles in steering Japan's political future

The split in the governing LDP was evident in the voting patterns of its leadership election. In an unprecedentedly crowded field with nine candidates, Sanae Takaichi — who positioned herself as the successor of her late mentor, former prime minister Shinzo Abe — won the first round of voting. Takaichi garnered 19.57 per cent of lawmakers and 29.62 per cent from the other half of the votes apportioned to 1 million rank-and-file members of the party. Ishiba, by comparison, garnered 12.5 per cent and 29.35 per cent respectively to run second.

In the second-round run-off between Ishiba and Takaichi, LDP lawmakers backed Ishiba by a margin of 189 votes to 173, shifting course to avoid the election of Takaichi. As Willy Jou explains in one of our two feature pieces this week, many ‘legislators who may not [have been] enthusiastic about Ishiba cast their ballots for him in the runoff’, motivated by keeping the hawkish Takaichi out, and the perception that Ishiba would ‘appeal to the median voter’ electorally.

Ishiba will have no time to rest on his laurels. As Ben Ascione explains in this week’s lead article, He ‘inherits a fractured party’ and ‘has no natural base’ of his own among his LDP colleagues in the Japanese Diet.

His first job is to manage Takaichi and her supporters, who, as Ascione explains, are ‘waiting in the wings for Ishiba to stumble, ready for another shot at the crown’. At the same time, he needs to shore up his support within the party beyond his immediate backers.

Given Ishiba’s relatively weak standing within the party, ‘electoral results and public support will play an outsized role in laying the foundations for him to govern’ and rebuffing pressure from the LDP’s conservative nationalist wing, Ascione argues. 

Prior to being formally sworn in as prime minister, Ishiba flagged a snap election, set to be held on 27 October, in a bid to ‘take advantage of his honeymoon period with the public’. Yet opinion polling shows that the public may still be reserving judgement on how he handles the slush fund scandal, which effectively pushed Kishida out of office. In one poll by national newspaper Asahi Shimbun on 1-2 October, Ishiba’s cabinet approval rating was 46 per cent, and his disapproval rating was 30 per cent. With Ishiba as prime minister, 16 per cent of respondents said their impression of the LDP had improved, 12 per cent said it had worsened, and 64 per cent said it had not changed. 

The LDP, which has ruled Japan continuously since 1955 with only two exceptions (in 1993-94 and 2009-2012), is almost certain to win the election despite the public’s wait-and-see attitude. Japan’s opposition parties are weak and divided, increasingly low voter turnout since 2012 favours the LDP, and rural-to-urban migration makes votes in rural LDP strongholds more valuable than urban votes. The real question is how big the LDP’s win will be and whether it will be enough to stabilise and secure Ishiba’s position.

Beyond the snap election, Ishiba’s support will likely depend on two things: political reforms to deal with the slush fund scandal and economic policy.

Ishiba had promised in LDP leadership election debates that the party would ‘thoroughly debate’ how to hold those involved in the slush fund scandal accountable, including the possibility of withholding their endorsement in the upcoming election. That sparked some internal criticism, particularly from former Abe faction members who account for the vast majority of the slush fund kickbacks. Upon winning the LDP leadership election he walked that back, saying it would be dealt with by the LDP election strategy headquarters, to which Ishiba has appointed fellow leadership candidate Shinjiro Koizumi.

By calling a snap election, there will be little time to reconsider endorsements. This may keep the knives of Takaichi and her supporters in their sheaves for now. But Ishiba will have to find a way to satisfy public demands for political reform given that, according to the Asahi poll, 75 per cent of respondents indicated that ‘Ishiba should move to clarify the actual situation on the LDP faction’s slush fund issue’ while only 15 per cent indicated it was unnecessary. 

On economic policy, Ishiba has aligned himself with Kishida’s policies of wealth redistribution and wage growth. Inspired by his mentor former prime minister Kakuei Tanaka, Ishiba aims to improve the lives of the less fortunate. Hailing from Tottori, Japan’s least populated prefecture, Ishiba aims to revitalise rural regions. He also emphasises the importance of reducing Japan’s debt, potentially appealing to the fiscal consolidation wing of Japan’s political establishment, which was largely sidelined during the Abe, Suga and Kishida governments. 

Despite Ishiba’s stated economic objectives, there are worries about the feasibility and focus of his economic policy. Critics point out a lack of clear strategy for implementing his economic goals. Additionally, given Ishiba’s background as a former defence minister and his decision to appoint four other former defence ministers to his cabinet, there are apprehensions that he may not prioritise economic issues sufficiently. This composition of his leadership team has led some to question whether Ishiba’s administration will devote enough attention to addressing Japan’s pressing economic challenges.

But for Ishiba to transcend his role as a symbol of the public’s desire for change within the LDP and to cultivate stable, long-term public support, it will be indispensable for him to develop a detailed strategy that clearly outlines how he intends to achieve his economic policy aims.

The EAF Editorial Board is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.