Another Japanese prime minister bites the dust. And, once again, a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader Fumio Kishida is brought down by the sort of party funding scandals that have been a recurring feature of the conservative LDP’s iron grip on power for all but four years since 1955.
Kishida, only three years into a deeply unpopular premiership, last week announced his withdrawal from next month’s internal party leadership contest. He acknowledged the party’s unpopularity and the need to restore trust in politics, insisting his successor would have to be reform-minded. “It is only by regaining the understanding and trust of the general public that we can move forward, and this is why the LDP must change,” he said.
It will be an uphill climb for the party, however, not least in the absence of any obvious popular or charismatic potential successor. The winner will assume the role of prime minister ahead of elections that must be held by the end of October 2025. Kishida is also held responsible by voters for surging inflation and the slow revival from Japan’s historically sluggish economic growth.
The slush fund issue has been a slow burner. Following widespread political scandals in the 1980s and early 1990s, corporate donations to MPs were banned. Now political factions raise cash through fundraising parties where tickets are usually sold for ¤1,200, mostly to companies. Four ministers were sacked last year over systematic under-reporting of ¤6 million in donations to three of the LDP’s main factions, including Kishida’s, although the PM was not directly implicated
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In the face of China’s increasingly aggressive role in the Pacific, Kishida’s main legacy is likely to be seen as the move away from the country’s traditional pacifism with his commitment to more than doubling the country’s defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP.
The LDP now faces a choice – more of the same, or a break with the past, perhaps through a younger leader who might persuade voters that scandals are a thing of the past.