Will the movement seeking Ishiba's resignation succeed?
The calls appear to come from a wide range of national and local LDP lawmakers, from younger members to former senior officials. But at the center of this movement are the same faces as ever — veteran political rivals and disgruntled conservative members of a now-dissolved party faction previously headed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who often clashed with Ishiba.
'Currently, votes from the younger generations (teens to those in their 40s) are drifting away from the LDP. Our division has been sounding the alarm about this for quite some time,' Yasutaka Nakasone, director of the party's youth division, told reporters after a July 25 meeting with Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama.
'We have repeatedly proposed policies targeting the younger generation. But these have not been adequately reflected in party policies. The responsibility of the party leadership, including the party president (Ishiba), is extremely grave, and we strongly demand that they take decisive action,' he added, in what amounted to a call for Ishiba to resign.
In addition, former LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi has suggested that Ishiba step aside.
"We need to make a fresh start to reconstruct the party by appointing new executive members, including the leader," he said during a July 27 broadcast on his YouTube channel. Motegi ran against Ishiba in the LDP presidential election in September last year.
But the loudest voices calling for the prime minister's head are coming from veteran political rivals, some of whom were caught up in a political slush funds scandal that led to the dissolution of the Abe faction and several others.
On a July 29 TV Asahi program, Lower House member and former senior Abe faction member Hiroshige Seko — forced to leave the LDP as punishment for his role in the slush funds scandal and now an independent — said he met on July 23 with three other former Abe faction leaders also caught up in the scandal. They included Koichi Hagiuda, a former party policy research council chair, Hirokazu Matsuno, a former chief cabinet secretary, and Yasutoshi Nishimura, a former minister of economy, trade and industry.
The group, Seko said, agreed it was time for Ishiba to be replaced.
Prime Minister and Liberal Democratic Party President Shigeru Ishiba speaks at a meeting of party lawmakers at the party's headquarters in Tokyo on July 28. |
JIJI
Political commentator Tetsuo Suzuki says Seko, Hagiuda and Motegi are 'at the center of the movement' among party veterans to replace Ishiba as party leader.
Yet there is no guarantee that either the party's younger members or the veterans who oppose Ishiba can actually succeed in convincing the rest of the party to replace him with someone else.
Their efforts so far have failed to make Ishiba budge from his determination to continue. And some of those calling for him to step down may be less willing to force the issue when push comes to shove.
The Abe faction was once the largest within the LDP. But it's now only about 60% of its size at the time of the September 2024 party presidential election, due to losses in the Lower House election a month later and last month's Upper House contest. That means even remaining former faction leaders may not be as unified as it might seem on the surface.
'Nishimura's recent media comments indicate he's not particularly enthusiastic about the movement to oust Ishiba,' Suzuki says.
Furthermore, it's not certain how many former members of a faction led by Motegi — also since dissolved — will back the former secretary-general to go up against Ishiba, the political commentator added.
Heading into Friday's plenary meeting, Ishiba will continue to face calls to resign from a wide swath of LDP members. But it's unclear whether his core opponents behind the effort still have the broader political strength within the party that is needed to make that happen.
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