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Japan’s ruling party rocked by photos of crusty old politicians and lingerie-clad dancers

Japan’s LDP has held power since 1955. Could a recent scandal finally hurt it?

Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida has sacked four ministers and introduced reforms as he tries to rebuild public confidence following recent scandals. Photograph: Franck Robichon/Pool/Getty Images

David McNeill's face
David McNeill in Tokyo
Mon Mar 18 2024 - 05:00

All last week, Japanese television was showing photographs taken at a racy party hosted by a rural chapter of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The images were of male politicians passing banknotes mouth-to-mouth with young female dancers who appeared to be dressed in lingerie.

The story has reinforced the LDP’s image as a conservative party of crusty old men: fewer than one in 10 of the party’s lawmakers are women. And dozens of those men are simultaneously embroiled in a slush-fund scandal, in which they received kickbacks from political fundraising parties.

Critics say the LDP has also yet to completely sever ties to the far-right Unification Church, better known as the Moonies. Last month it emerged that education minister Masahito Moriyama, who is in charge of dissolving the church in Japan after it bilked thousands of followers, appears to have been endorsed by them.

The stock phrase “scandal-tinted” has rarely been so apt. Unsurprisingly, approval ratings for the LDP and the government have plummeted. Several polls put support for the government at less than 20 per cent: one by Jiji Press suggested the party is backed by just 14.6 per cent of the public, its lowest support level in living memory.

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Those polls clearly spell trouble for prime minister Fumio Kishida, but his party has proved itself more resilient. The LDP has ruled Japan for all but about four years since 1955. On the few occasions when it appeared to be on the ropes (such as in 2009 when it lost to the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan), it has rebounded.

Eye-popping scandals have come and gone. In 1992, prosecutors raided the home of Japan’s most powerful politician, the LDP’s Shin Kanemaru, and found hundreds of pounds of gold bars (and about $50 million in cash and securities) acquired from a lifetime of illegal political donations, hidden under his floorboards.

The LDP has long benefited from an electoral system skewed towards conservative rural Japan. In recent years it has relied in urban areas on coalition partner Komeito, which is backed by the eight million members of the lay Buddhist group Soka Gakkai, to harvest votes.

Apathy helps, too. Turnout in elections has fallen steadily since the 2009, especially among the young. Only a third of 18- and 19-year-olds vote, in contrast to the two-thirds of Japanese in their 60s who went to the polling booth in 2019. Many older voters like Japan’s political stability, a contrast to other rich democracies such as the UK and US, that have been roiled by populist movements.

But the party has not survived this long without being able to read voters. Kishida has tried to deflect public anger by sacking four senior cabinet members over the slush-fund scandal and setting up a reform taskforce. One of the more concrete outcomes has been the disbandment of large factions within the LDP, including the group once led by assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

These reforms can only go so far, however. For decades, LDP factions have installed and backed Japan’s prime ministers, including Kishida. Any attempt to introduce tougher monitoring or political funding laws could bring him into conflict with the party’s backroom leaders. For that reason, many call the reforms a performance for the public.

Kishida was already unpopular before all this kicked off. His unflattering nickname, “the four-eyed tax-hiker”, alludes to his attempts to hike taxes by one trillion yen (about €6.2 billion) to pay for a doubling of military spending. He has until next year to call an election but faces a party vote in September. A change in leadership appears inevitable.

The problem for the LDP is that there are few viable leaders to replace him.

Voters are even more poorly served. The opposition struggles to unite. Smelling blood in the water, the leader of the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan has called for “national salvation cabinet” to take down the LDP. But they are too far apart ideologically from rivals Nippon Ishin and the Democratic Party for the People to have a coherent programme.

For that reason, most expect the LDP to trundle on.

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