Japan PM Kishida’s premiership to end after decision to exit party leadership race

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday (Aug 14) he will not seek re-election as head of his party, meaning his tenure as prime minister will end in September after just under three years.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan almost uninterrupted since 1945, is due to hold an internal leadership contest next month. Its popularity ratings have slumped because of rising prices.
“In this (party) presidential election, it is necessary to show the people that the LDP is changing and the party is a new LDP,” Kishida told reporters at a press conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
“For this, transparent and open elections and free and vigorous debate are important. The most obvious first step to show that the LDP will change is for me to step aside,” he said.
“I will not be running in the forthcoming presidential election.”
“Politics cannot function without public trust,” said Kishida. “I will now focus on supporting the newly elected LDP leader as a rank-and-file member of the party.”
Kishida had informed senior administration officials of his intention not to run, media including national broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News reported earlier.
The head of the ruling party is traditionally also prime minister.
Kishida, 67, has been in office since October 2021, and has seen his and his party’s poll ratings slide sharply in response to rising prices hitting Japanese incomes and several scandals.
In November last year, Kishida announced a stimulus package worth 17 trillion yen (more than US$100 billion at the time) as he tried to ease the pressure from inflation and rescue his premiership.
But this failed to make him any less unpopular, both among voters in the world’s fourth-largest economy and within his own party.
He also faced public discontent over the failure of wages to keep pace with the rising cost of living as the country finally shook off years of deflationary pressure.
Along with inflation – for Japanese voters an unfamiliar and unwelcome phenomenon – growth has spluttered, shrinking 0.7 per cent in the first quarter.
Despite some recovery in recent weeks, the yen has been one of the world’s worst-performing currencies, making life easier for exporters but pushing up import prices.
Kishida’s public support has also been sliding amid revelations about the LDP’s ties to the controversial Unification Church and political donations made at party fundraising events that went unrecorded.
“An LDP incumbent prime minister cannot run in the presidential race unless he’s assured of a victory. It’s like the grand champion yokozunas of sumo. You don’t just win, but you need to win with grace,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University.
Kishida’s decision to quit triggers a contest to replace him as president of the party, and by extension as the leader of the world’s fourth-biggest economy.
Whoever succeeds Kishida will have to unite a fractious ruling group and tackle the rising cost of living, escalating geopolitical tensions with China, and the potential return of Donald Trump as US president next year.
Kishida could in theory have governed until 2025, and there had been speculation he might call a snap election to shore up his position.
But NHK reported that growing voices inside the LDP believed it would fare badly in elections under Kishida. In April, the party lost three by-elections.
Kishida, who last year escaped a pipe-bomb attack unscathed, has also faced severe criticism over a major kickbacks scandal linked to fundraising parties.
Kishida decided to jump because he knew he would lose the leadership battle, said Nakano.
“He has failed to close ranks within the LDP,” Nakano told AFP.
But he added: “For an LDP leader, staying in power for three years is longer than the average.”
Before Wednesday, several figures were mooted in local media as possible challengers to Kishida including digital minister Taro Kono and economic security minister Sanae Takaichi.
The Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported that some LDP members have high hopes for Shigeru Ishiba, former party number two, and Shinjiro Koizumi, former environment minister and son of ex-premier Junichiro Koizumi.
As the country’s eighth-longest serving post-war leader, Kishida led Japan out of the COVID-19 pandemic with massive stimulus spending. He also appointed Kazuo Ueda, an academic tasked with ending his predecessor’s radical monetary stimulus, to head the Bank of Japan (BOJ).
The BOJ in July unexpectedly raised interest rates as inflation took hold, contributing to stock market instability and sending the yen sharply lower.
Kishida’s departure could mean tighter fiscal and monetary conditions depending on the candidate, according to Shoki Omori, chief Japan desk strategist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo.
“In short, risk assets, particularly equities, will likely be hit the most,” he said.
In another break from the past, Kishida also eschewed corporate profit-driven trickle-down economics in favour of policies aimed at boosting household incomes, including wage hikes and promoting share ownership.
Despite that departure on the economy, he stuck with the hawkish security policies of his predecessor Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022.
He unveiled Japan’s biggest military build-up since World War II with a commitment to double defence spending, aimed at deterring neighbouring China from pursuing its territorial ambitions in East Asia through military force.
With prodding from Washington, Kishida also mended Japan’s strained relations with South Korea, enabling the two countries and their mutual ally, the US, to pursue deeper security cooperation to counter the threat posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.
“Under Prime Minister Kishida’s steadfast leadership, Japan and the United States have ushered in a new era of relations for the Alliance,” US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Kishida has sided decisively with Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, welcoming President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima and visiting Kyiv.
Under Kishida, Japan also pledged to double its defence spending to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standard of 2 per cent of gross domestic product by 2027.
Encouraged by the US as the two countries seek to confront an increasingly assertive China, this marked a major change for Japan from decades of strict pacifism.
US President Joe Biden hosted Kishida at the White House in April when the two countries announced a “new era” in cooperation.
Japan and the Philippines in July signed a defence pact allowing for the deployment of troops on each other’s territory.
On climate, Kishida promised at COP28 in December that Japan would build no new coal power stations that were “unabated”, or lacked measures to reduce emissions.
Critics said that the necessary technologies, such as “co-firing” coal with ammonia or capturing and storing emissions, were unproven on a large scale.