How scandal brought down Fumio Kishida

Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida has announced he will be stepping down as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party next month. This means yet another new leader, the thirteenth in my quarter century in the country (unless one of the previous incumbents fancies another go) but almost certainly not a radical new direction. 

Whoever wins the LDP leadership election will become prime minister, as the party controls both houses of parliament, though no general election need be held until 2025.

The announcement has been declared a “surprise,” but in truth, the resignation of a Japanese premier is never really that much of a surprise. It happens so regularly that there are jokes about enlivening the notoriously dull Japanese political scene by playing Queen’s anthem “Another One Bites the Dust” at the resignation press conferences, or just installing a revolving door at the premier’s official residence at the Kotei (Japan’s No. 10).

To be fair, Kishida lasted longer than many, his three-year stint will make him, remarkably, the eighth-longest serving post-war prime minister. And he will likely be remembered as essentially a decent man who tried his best in difficult circumstances. He will point to the post-Covid stimulus package, beginnings of a thaw in the hitherto glacial relationship with South Korea, replacing the head of the Bank of Japan, and a firm promise to beef up the military in the face of potential threats as solid achievements.

But it’s thin gruel, or perhaps watery miso. Kishida’s tenure began with ambitious promises of a new kinder capitalism with better wealth distribution and virtuous growth cycles but ends with Japanese stocks and the Yen see-sawing seemingly beyond government control. His party’s and his personal polling are dire, and though never personally a figure of especial opprobrium, Kishida never managed to establish himself in the public imagination or get a firm grip on his fractious party. 

The biggest problem, as so often with Japanese leaders, was scandal… scandal after scandal after scandal. His predecessor Shinzo Abe never managed to play down allegations of politicking at supposedly neutral, publicly funded cherry blossom parties, but with Kishida it was a whole series of wounding embarrassments, some of which were his fault and others his colleagues’, that he could never really break free from.

A serious misstep, which expended much of his early political capital and brought his honeymoon period to an abrupt end, was the decision to hold a state funeral for Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022. This hugely expensive and constitutionally highly dubious move provoked an intensity of anger rarely seen in Japanese society and marked Kishida out as either alarmingly naive or easily manipulated. 

More recently have been the lingering accusations of a slush fund, which has seen no fewer than ten ministers and their aides step down. Kishida was never personally implicated and he tried to clean up the house by dissolving (at least in theory) the notoriously murky party factions, but the miasma of corruption and sleaze was inescapable. He didn’t help matters by appointing, and then firing for inappropriate behaviour (partying in the official residence), his own son to a key advisory role despite him having little relevant experience.

Hanging over all of this, like an enormous ominous dark cloud, is the still far from resolved scandal of the party’s decades old connections with the Unification Church (more commonly known as the “Moonies”). Some 179 (of 379) lawmakers have now admitted to having relationships with the group. The issue is believed to have motivated Tetsuya Yamagami to construct his own gun and use it to murder Shinzo Abe, a crime for which he awaits trial. 

Fumio Kishida had an enormous task to drag his party out of the cess pit and convince the public that it had seriously reformed. He failed, and as he himself acknowledged in his resignation speech: “We need to show an LDP reborn. The easiest way to clearly show that the LDP has changed is for me to step aside.”

But will stepping aside demonstrate this rebirth? The runners and riders are all old guard, with an emphasis on old. There is party secretary Toshimitsu Motegi (sixty-eight), digital minister Taro Kono (sixty-one), defense minister Shigeru Ishiba (sixty-seven), economic secretary Sanae Takaichi (a former heavy metal drummer and Margaret Thatcher fan, sixty-three), and foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa (seventy-one). There is even speculation of former prime minister Yoshihide Suga (seventy-five) making an unlikely return, or Taro Aso (eighty-four), who lasted less than a year as PM in 2008-2009, throwing his stylish fedora into the ring. Absolutely none of these could plausibly be presented as new brooms. 

As for the Japanese public, today’s news has barely provoked a shrug in a country more worried about the reportedly elevated risk of a massive earthquake hitting the Nankai trough area sometime soon. And as for the future, perhaps after Queen next up on the playlist could be the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.