Image: Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru (R) and his chief rival, Takaichi Sanae

At first glance, the ascension on October 1 of Ishiba Shigeru¹ as leader of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and therefore Prime Minister of Japan, along with the formation of a new LDP-led coalition government after the October 27 parliamentary election, confirms the image of Japan as a rare paragon of political stability in a democratic world rocked by anti-incumbent feelings traceable to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent inflation.

The LDP has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955, with brief interruptions between 1993 and 1994 and again from 2009 to 2012. Abe Shinzo’s tenure from December 2012 to September 2020 was the longest of any Japanese prime minister. The formula for this stability included the skilful rotation of leaders (chosen from competing log-rolling factions within the party and facilitated by a leadership selection system that gives equal weight to LDP lawmakers and party rank and file); a reliable coalition partner in Komeito (a socially conservative Buddhist party) and a tarnished public memory of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (now the Constitutional Democrats) which, during its three years in government, was noted for frequent changes of leadership, conflict with the United States over the location of military bases and mishandling of the Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Nevertheless, Japan is at best a partial exception to the recent anti-incumbent wave. While COVID deaths in Japan were modest in number compared to many Western countries , many Japanese reasonably felt that the government could have done more to take advantage of Japan’s initially low rates of infection. And while inflation rates have also been low compared to other G7 countries (2.5 per cent in 2024 after a peak of 3.27 per cent in 2023), Japan had grown accustomed to price stability and sometimes deflation during the previous decades, making even modest price increases difficult for many to accept.

Ishiba is the third prime minister in four years, with unpopularity a factor in the departure of both of his predecessors, Suga Yoshihide (2020–21) and Kishida Fumio (2021–24). In Suga’s case, the cabinet’s popularity had fallen from 74 per cent at the time of Abe’s resignation to less than 30 per cent a year later, when Japan had finally succumbed to a serious wave of COVID infections. Under Kishida, monthly cabinet approval ratings rose sharply in the fall of 2021 and remained between 50 and 59 per cent in the first half of 2022. Kishida was able to complete his three-year term as leader of the LDP, leading the party to victory in both the 2021 general election and in the House of Councillors election the following year with only slightly reduced majorities.

Two scandals shake the LDP

But that was before two scandals shook the party to its core. The first followed the assassination of Abe Shinzo in 2022 by a young man angered by the loss of his family’s fortune to the Unification Church, which became established in Japan on the invitation of Abe’s grandfather, Kishi Nobosuke, in 1964. (The church’s founder, the Reverend Sung Myun Moon, even built his first Japanese headquarters next door to Kishi Nobosuke’s – and Abe Shinzo’s childhood – home.) The media spotlight fell upon the LDP’s many longstanding links with the church, most notably the appearance online of Korean interviews with Dr. Moon in the 1980s in which he bragged about his influence on Japanese politicians.

While this scandal merely deepened some longstanding ambivalence about the LDP, causing support for the Kishida cabinet to fall to 36 per cent,  a second scandal brought public dissatisfaction to a boil. In November 2023, it became public that three of the more conservative party factions, including the formerly Abe-led Seiwa Kai faction, had failed to report or properly use more than ¥600 million in campaign funds, in violation of Japanese campaign finance and election laws.

As Kishida’s support consequently fell to 26 per cent, he sacked four cabinet ministers and several LDP lawmakers were indicted. A total of 39 LDP lawmakers received some form of censure or punishment from the government, as Kishida promised reforms to restore public trust in the government. The most far-reaching of these changes has undoubtedly been the announcement by LDP leaders to dissolve three of the main party factions – the Seiwa Kai, the Shiskuikai and Kishida’s own (more liberal) Kochikai faction – as this promises to replace some covert internal machinations with more formal and publicly accountable procedures.

Although the government experienced some modest recovery in the polls in the spring of 2024, it was not sufficient to justify a second term for Kishida. In the second-round runoff between the top two candidates vying to succeed him, Ishiba narrowly edged out Takaichi Sanae, the colourful female Minister of State for Economic Security, who was the surprise recipient of Abe’s endorsement for the leadership in 2021 and who has emerged as the clear favourite of the party’s right wing.

While both candidates follow the “Abe Doctrine” of normalizing Japan’s national security policy and countering the expansion of Chinese power (Japan’s defence spending grew by 27 per cent in 2023 and is projected to grow by about 17 per cent in 2024), there are considerable differences of tone and emphasis. And when Ishiba offered Takaichi the general affairs chair as an olive branch, Takaichi declined, saying that she would only accept the more important position of secretary-general. As former LDP policy chief Hagiuda Koichi put it, “If he wanted to unify the party, he should have offered her the position of secretary-general … (and) picked people from other groups too,” instead of merely rewarding his own supporters. Another perceived misstep on Ishiba’s part was sending mixed signals about the runup to the subsequent election, initially indicating that he was going to engage in widespread consultation, but then making the snap call for October 27.

TABLE 1: RESULTS OF2024 ELECTION FOR THE JAPANESE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Sources: Include references here.

Sources: NHK, Nikkei, IPU Parline and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

The results of that election have left the LDP-led government hanging onto power by a thread. The LDP now has just 191 seats in the 465-seat House of Representatives, down from 259 in the 2021 election. Moreover, its regular coalition partner, Komeito, has fallen from 32 seats to 24, and its new leader, Ishii Keiichi, lost his own seat. This is the first time since the 2009 election that the two parties combined have fallen short of the 233 seats needed to form a majority government. While negotiations with the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) have resulted in a series of concessions on tax policy that are friendlier to consumers and those with lower incomes, this arrangement will not afford the degree of stability to which LDP leaders have grown accustomed. For one thing, the DPP is probably a more natural partner for the social-liberal opposition CDP, which increased its share of the popular vote by 11 per cent and picked up 52 seats for a total of 148, making it look much more like a government-in-waiting and a party that has been forgiven for its past mistakes.

Stepping back from these recent events, we can see permanent, tectonic shifts likely to have significant implications not only for the future party system but also for economic, energy and defence policy:

• Defactionalization: This is a structural change within the LDP spurred by popular dissatisfaction with both the Unification Church and slush fund scandals. It will improve transparency, accountability and equity within government, but could reduce pluralism within the LDP, turning it into more of a “normal” party of the centre-right.
• Generational change appears likely to continue to weaken adherence to pacifism, opposition to nuclear energy and the salaryman model of workplace organization. This model, which worked so well in the 1980s, has been holding back the modernization of the workforce, especially women. The passing of the 95-year-old founder of Komeito, Ikeda Daisaku, and the retirement of longtime leader Yamaguchi Natsuo underscore the party’s diminishing relevance, which is likely to continue. Moving away from parliamentary dependence on a historically Buddhist and pacifist party could open up new possibilities for future LDP policy.
• Female empowerment: While female participation in Japanese politics still lags behind most other countries, the 73 women elected to the Diet in 2024 represent a new record and another irreversible trend. Two women in particular are among the most popular and important politicians in Japan: Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko,71, and the aforementioned Takaichi Sanae, 63. While numerous observers such as Le Monde have tapped Koike to become a future prime minister, she is handicapped by her political trajectory: after serving in the House of Representatives for 23 years, she left the LDP in 2016 to form her own party at the local level as a vehicle for the governor’s job. While numerous scenarios are possible (could Koike join the CDP or DPP and become its leader instead?), the most likely person to become Japan’s first female prime minister is undoubtedly Takaichi, who is currently the most powerful challenger within the LDP.

Is Japan ready for its own iron lady?

According to The Economist, Ishiba Shigeru was a better choice  than Takaichi to lead Japan at this juncture, because his reputation as an independent-minded critic of Abe bolstered his credibility with the Japanese public without antagonizing Japan’s neghbours: “By choosing Mr. Ishiba, the LDP opted for its most popular figure, hoping that a change in leadership style will mollify an angry public. His victory also illustrates the fear that many felt about Takaichi Sanae, a hard-right nationalist.”²

True, Takaichi has defiantly visited the Yasukuni Shrine (a memorial to Japanese soldiers and war dead that is seen in China and Korea as a symbol of Japanese militarism); supports the revision of Article 9 (the pacifist article imposed on Japan at the end of the Second World War that pledges the country to “forever renounce war or … the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes”); and favours the development of nuclear energy as well as the acceptance of American intermediate-range nuclear missiles on Japanese territory. Her new book Japan’s Economic Security: Protecting the Nation and Its People (published this year to coincide with her second run at the party leadership) details the significant changes in Japan’s security landscape put in place by Takaichi herself in her role as Economic Security Minister, as well as her promotion of dual-use (civilian and military) technologies.

To be fair to Prime Minister Ishiba (who has the backing of former Prime Minister Kishida), he too can lay claim to being a defence otaku (policy wonk), as he is a former Minister of Defence and one of the architects of the gradual remilitarization or “normalization” of Japanese foreign and defence policies during the Abe years (2012–20). Abe’s policies marked a historic shift in Japanese defence policies. For example, Japan developed its first National Security Strategy and its first National Security Council during this period, and it is noteworthy that Japanese forces now protect U.S. ships and places in the region, not the other way around.

Kishida and Ishiba have continued in that vein by committing in late 2022 to a ¥43 trillion ($330 billion USD) increase in military spending to allow for a counterstrike capability (the purchase of F-35 jets and Tomahawk missiles from the United States, as well as large stockpiles of fuel and ammunition). Still, they portray their policies as “limited and proportionate” and imply that Takaichi is needlessly provocative toward Japan’s neighbours. Ishiba is also more overtly apologetic about the history of Japanese aggression and war crimes and is therefore considered better than Takaichi for Japan–South Korea relations.

Nevertheless, Ishiba’s ideas for new directions in Japanese policy may quickly reach a dead end. He has promoted the idea of an Asian NATO (knitting together all of America’s bilateral defence treaties into a single formal alliance) and wishes to renegotiate the terms of the U.S.-Japanese defence agreement, which he sees as unfair to Japan. But with the return to office of U.S. President Trump (who is sceptical of NATO and most existing bilateral agreements), both of those initiatives seem ill-advised.

In contrast, Takaichi’s clear and simple message is that she “wants Japan to be stronger and richer.” To back this up, she has detailed economic and security policies that she has already developed and implemented. This arguably represents a greater fulfilment of Abe’s economic and diplomatic vision of conservative and nationalist realism than do Kishida and Ishiba’s policies. It also meets regional security threats at a time when China appears poised to attack Taiwan and when Japanese media report North Korean missile tests with almost the same regularity as they announce Shohei Ohtani’s home runs.

With respect to the United States, Takaichi is better positioned to assume Abe’s role as “Trump whisperer,” and would be as prepared as anyone could be to fill the breach should a Trump-led U.S. foreign policy create either a military vacuum or an economic one. To be sure, she is more polarizing – but she is also more persuasive. It is telling that on the eve of the October parliamentary election, Takaichi’s YouTube channel had 3.9 million subscribers, while Ishiba’s had only 25,000.

The slow return of nuclear power

Another Japanese trend started by Prime Minister Abe is the slow return to nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011. Before the accident, Japan operated more than 50 nuclear reactors which provided between 25 and 30 per cent of Japan’s electricity, and had plans to raise that level to 40 per cent. There are now 33 operable reactors, but only 13 reactors in six power plants are currently operating, providing just 5.6 per cent of Japan’s electric power. There are two more reactors under construction and ten more that must both pass regulatory review by the Nuclear Regulation Authority and obtain local government consent.

Japan’s climate and energy security policy foresees nuclear providing 20 to 22 per cent of electricity generation by 2030. While the antinuclear movement in Japan remains strong, occasionally winning local battles against approval of reactors, technological developments (e.g. fourth-generation fast-breeder reactors and small modular nuclear reactors and improved tsunami walls and seismic upgrades) and shifts in public opinion (public support for nuclear energy has increased since the Russian invasion of Ukraine) have led to renewed momentum for nuclear energy in Japan. Nevertheless, the uncertainty surrounding Ishiba’s minority government has caused both Nikkei Asia and Energy Intelligence to cast doubt on the government’s commitment to nuclear energy going forward.

Here again, Takaichi is more committed to nuclear power than is Prime Minister Ishiba, with Ishiba stressing geothermal and other renewables in his campaign platform while Takaichi promotes a fleet of modular reactors as a possible secure baseload that could bring Japan back to its pre-2011 targets. She has also advanced government policies that are clearly intended to make Japan a leader in fusion energy research. It has been argued that in this area as in several others, the Osaka-based Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) aligns more closely with the LDP than the more tradition-bound and still Buddhist, pacifist and China-friendly Komeito. Nippon Ishin no Kai also has 38 seats in the Diet, enough to boost the LDP back into majority territory if it could be persuaded to join the coalition. It is speculation, but perhaps if the determinedly free-market and science-promoting Takaichi were to become the party’s leader, the LDP-led coalition could be reborn on that basis and once again placed on a solid footing.

In 2011, Takaichi left the Seiwa Kai (Abe) faction, stating that she preferred spending her nights studying policies rather than drinking and dining with her colleagues. That may explain her temporarily narrower base within the party, but it also explains her cleaner hands as she reaches both inside and outside the LDP for the keys to power.

Notes

¹This article follows the Japanese convention for name order, with the surname coming first (e.g. Abe Shinzo, Kishida Fumio, Ishiba Shigeru).

²“Critic’s Choice,” The Economist, October 5, 2024, p. 36.