LDP panel to decide whether to hold party poll that could oust Ishiba

Japan Times

2 days ago

In a plenary session of lawmakers from both chambers of parliament, a Liberal Democratic Party panel was entrusted with deciding whether to hold a presidential election in the near future, following growing calls for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to step down.
While the meeting showed that dissatisfaction with Ishiba remaining as leader is steady within the party, how this brewing discontent will play out going forward remains unclear.
'We need a reset to rebuild the party after our electoral losses, and that reset needs to be clear to the people,' Lower House lawmaker Takako Suzuki told reporters after the meeting.
'We need to elect a new leader to unify the party and take responsibility for the fact that our policies didn't gain the public's favor in the Upper House election,' Hiroaki Tabata, another Lower House lawmaker, echoed.
Upper House lawmaker Shigeharu Aoyama told reporters roughly six people spoke in favor of Ishiba.
'A frank debate on the party's structure and the assessment of the Upper House election is necessary to boost the party's cohesion,' former education minister Masahiko Shibayama said.
Friday's session, the second-most authoritative forum for the party after holding a convention, became an opportunity for another round of confrontation between the party and its executives after last month's debacle in the Upper House election. The meeting lasted roughly two hours, and 253 lawmakers attended.
Although there's no rule allowing party members to remove an incumbent president from office, party rules say an election must take place if more than half of all sitting parliamentarians and at least one representative from each prefectural federation formally request it. According to party rules, that process is left to the presidential election committee.
Chaired by Lower House lawmaker Ichiro Aisawa, the committee — usually made up of 11 party lawmakers — is typically entrusted with running presidential elections.
Aisawa, himself — who chairs other party committees on controversial topics such as the election system and dual surnames for married couples — is a veteran lawmaker known to be a fence-sitter.
Party rules lack any other specifications on a potential presidential election, Aisawa said, adding it was a first in the LDP's history.
'We need to establish a proper system and timing,' Aisawa told reporters, underlining the need for the party to finalize the current assessment of the Upper House election as a pre-condition to hold an election.
The meeting opened with Ishiba, who is also the LDP's party president, apologizing again for the recent electoral defeat but reiterating his intention to stay on.
With top tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa in Washington hammering out the details of the recent trade agreement between Japan and the United States, Ishiba stressed the need for policy continuity.
'I want to hear your opinions on how to go forward with (issues such as) agricultural policy and disaster prevention, so that we can continue to take responsibility for Japan,' Ishiba said in opening remarks after mentioning tariffs.
LDP presidential election committee chairman Ichiro Aisawa speaks to reporters after the plenary meeting. |
Francis Tang
Ishiba has long shown a strong appetite to stay in government. However, his future might hang on the fate of the party's second-in-command— Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama.
Since the onset of the Ishiba administration, Moriyama's network with opposition parties has been instrumental in passing key legislation in parliament, including the budget for fiscal 2025 and reforming the pension system.
Speaking after Ishiba, Moriyama mentioned the party has officially started a formal assessment of what caused the recent electoral fiasco. In doing so, the party will consult its regional chapters as well as support groups and candidates who lost their races. A final report is slated to be released in the coming weeks.
'We have to work together as a party, with the conviction that our party stands on the side of the people,' he said.
Moriyama — formally responsible for the election in his role as secretary-general — has hinted he might step down after the report is published. Calls for his resignation had also surfaced in the aftermath of the election.
After the Bon summer holiday period is over, the government is expected to lay the groundwork for approving the supplementary budget in the upcoming session of parliament. Following July's defeat, however, the Ishiba administration lacks a majority in both the Lower and Upper House.
In an attempt to seek irrefutable approval in parliament — and find further reasons to justify his decision to stay in power — Ishiba has instructed party executives to accelerate internal debate on political reform and launch discussions on the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan's economic policy.
The public's lukewarm reaction toward the likelihood of Ishiba's resignation has crucially played in the prime minister's favor.
In a JNN poll conducted over the weekend, 47% of respondents said Ishiba shouldn't resign, 4 percentage points higher than those who said he should. While support for the LDP was slightly down, the government approval ratings were up 4 points.
Beginning Saturday, the political center of Nagatacho will enter the Bon holidays, when lawmakers usually go back to their constituencies.
Thus, any further showdown between Ishiba and his party will have to wait a little while longer.
Staff writers Himari Semans and Francis Tang contributed to this report.