On Thursday the LDP of Japan had its leadership elections to replace Fumio Kishida. Despite a huge number of candidates, the race more or less went as expected, going down to a huge two-way showdown between Shigeru Ishiba and Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi would have been the first woman to occupy the post but don't let that fool you; she's a …
On Thursday the LDP of Japan had its leadership elections to replace Fumio Kishida. Despite a huge number of candidates, the race more or less went as expected, going down to a huge two-way showdown between Shigeru Ishiba and Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi would have been the first woman to occupy the post but don't let that fool you; she's a close protege of the late Abe Shinzo who was the leading backer of her career and she manages to be even more conservative than him. She also lacks all of the pragmatism that defined Abe, leaving just the pure ideologue. What's more, she was, ironically, the most socially conservative of the bunch, with a history of inflammatory anti-LGBT commentary and was the only LDP candidate in the running who has been staunchly on the record opposing letting married women (or men, sometimes) keep their original surnames (in Japan, upon marriage, you create a household and it has to be registered under one name, so both parties must take on the same last name).
Happy she lost (even if only very narrowly). But it's not like Shigeru Ishiba is much better. It was just a predictable result. Ishiba comes from the "centrist" wing of the party, but he's long been extremely friendly with Abe and Abe's faction. He has good relations with the conservative, is himself (like almost every ambitious member of the LDP), a member of the ultraconservative nationalist Nippon Kaigi, and has a reputation for being a military otaku (he loves tank miniatures and models and is a geek for military weapons and history). He's another Suga style insipid party insider, having occupied the position of President of the party. He's been a member of the Diet since 1986 (his father was a popular politician and he won office at age 29). He's neither old nor young, conservative nor moderate, which helped him consolidate most of the mainstream field.
Interestingly enough, Ishiba comes from Tottori Prefecture, which is one of the physically smallest prefectures (fourth or fifth smallest), and also the least populous of all Japan's prefectures, with less than 450,000 residents. In Japan, Tottori is famous for having very little going for it; I mean it just has no famous landmarks (like Izumo Taisha in neighboring Shimane), no really famous cultural traditions or landmarks, and just in general because of it's odd location, not a lot of historically important events have ever occurred there. The only thing its really known for is the Tottori Sand Dunes which are Japan's only sand dunes and maybe Mt. Daisen, one of Japan's 100 famous mountains and also a very popular skiing area for people in the Kansai region around Osaka to go to during the winter.
Sanae Takaichi comes from Nara Prefecture. In fact, I believe Abe was murdered while stumping for her when he changed his schedule last minute following an adultery scandal for the LDP politician he was originally set to stump for that weekend (and leaving Nara police almost no time to prepare a security plan).
Speaking of Abe, I've never seen anything like it, 2 years after his assassination. I've never heard of an assassination ruining the reputation of the person assassinated while the perpetrator is widely sympathized. Abe had already left office with multiple scandals (several involving his wife) and approval ratings in the teens, but he was still something of the power behind the scenes in the LDP. Since his assassination, the extensive network his family helped the Unification Church cult (strangely enough a radical Korean cult with an anti-Japan bent of all things), gain influence over all most of the LDP in exchange for using their cult members for GOTV and campaigning (for free), led to his own brother having to resign from the diet. Then his own faction got caught up in the fundraising scandal were LDP politicians in multiple factions were hosting fundraising parties and then skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars off the top to distribute to members (of the Diet) without reporting it either, and his faction was also dissolved and it also came back that this practice went back years and years, all the way to when he was PM. Abe redefined modern Japanese politics, was the longest serving PM in post-war history, and was the most successful politician of the democratic era, and yet being assassinated just turned into a series of events and brought widespread media and public attention, to the rot behind his political machine and definitively discredited him.
The Unification Church scandal led to Kishida, (another moderate, centrist candidate who also united other factions to defeating the Abe faction's chosen candidate, Takaichi) or at least enabled him, to largely purge his cabinet of Abe loyalists, and now Abe's favored protege has lost two elections to the leadership (she may or may not have a chance for a third run; the LDP is worse than the Tories, its a den of self-serving vipers cynically after power and with little loyalty; it wouldn't surprise me to see another ambitious conservative politician upstage Takaichi in the next leadership elections, which probably won't be that far in the future).
Now if only the opposition party situation wasn't a rampant mess, if only the Left wasn't completely fragmented, unprofessional, poorly organized, and incompetent, and if only there was actually a well-funded political movement like Hatoyama's coalition in 2009 to take advantage of years and years of LDP scandals and increasing voter dissatisfaction. Abe built an LDP that was too successful, but for most of the interior of the country, workers and common people haven't seen benefits from his policies and even in the cities, many are disenchanted with the arrogance and corruption of the LDP (a result of it being too successful). The increasingly conservative and less pragmatic bend of much of its membership also creates, I think, more opportunities for other parties. The next elections should bring them back down to earth more, but the different opposition parties need to have a plan, especially the Democratic Constitutional Party of Japan or whatever it's calling itself these days (it has fallen apart, dissolved, fused with other parties and renamed itself 3 times since losing power a little over a decade ago to Abe).
On Thursday the LDP of Japan had its leadership elections to replace Fumio Kishida. Despite a huge number of candidates, the race more or less went as expected, going down to a huge two-way showdown between Shigeru Ishiba and Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi would have been the first woman to occupy the post but don't let that fool you; she's a close protege of the late Abe Shinzo who was the leading backer of her career and she manages to be even more conservative than him. She also lacks all of the pragmatism that defined Abe, leaving just the pure ideologue. What's more, she was, ironically, the most socially conservative of the bunch, with a history of inflammatory anti-LGBT commentary and was the only LDP candidate in the running who has been staunchly on the record opposing letting married women (or men, sometimes) keep their original surnames (in Japan, upon marriage, you create a household and it has to be registered under one name, so both parties must take on the same last name).
Happy she lost (even if only very narrowly). But it's not like Shigeru Ishiba is much better. It was just a predictable result. Ishiba comes from the "centrist" wing of the party, but he's long been extremely friendly with Abe and Abe's faction. He has good relations with the conservative, is himself (like almost every ambitious member of the LDP), a member of the ultraconservative nationalist Nippon Kaigi, and has a reputation for being a military otaku (he loves tank miniatures and models and is a geek for military weapons and history). He's another Suga style insipid party insider, having occupied the position of President of the party. He's been a member of the Diet since 1986 (his father was a popular politician and he won office at age 29). He's neither old nor young, conservative nor moderate, which helped him consolidate most of the mainstream field.
Interestingly enough, Ishiba comes from Tottori Prefecture, which is one of the physically smallest prefectures (fourth or fifth smallest), and also the least populous of all Japan's prefectures, with less than 450,000 residents. In Japan, Tottori is famous for having very little going for it; I mean it just has no famous landmarks (like Izumo Taisha in neighboring Shimane), no really famous cultural traditions or landmarks, and just in general because of it's odd location, not a lot of historically important events have ever occurred there. The only thing its really known for is the Tottori Sand Dunes which are Japan's only sand dunes and maybe Mt. Daisen, one of Japan's 100 famous mountains and also a very popular skiing area for people in the Kansai region around Osaka to go to during the winter.
Sanae Takaichi comes from Nara Prefecture. In fact, I believe Abe was murdered while stumping for her when he changed his schedule last minute following an adultery scandal for the LDP politician he was originally set to stump for that weekend (and leaving Nara police almost no time to prepare a security plan).
Speaking of Abe, I've never seen anything like it, 2 years after his assassination. I've never heard of an assassination ruining the reputation of the person assassinated while the perpetrator is widely sympathized. Abe had already left office with multiple scandals (several involving his wife) and approval ratings in the teens, but he was still something of the power behind the scenes in the LDP. Since his assassination, the extensive network his family helped the Unification Church cult (strangely enough a radical Korean cult with an anti-Japan bent of all things), gain influence over all most of the LDP in exchange for using their cult members for GOTV and campaigning (for free), led to his own brother having to resign from the diet. Then his own faction got caught up in the fundraising scandal were LDP politicians in multiple factions were hosting fundraising parties and then skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars off the top to distribute to members (of the Diet) without reporting it either, and his faction was also dissolved and it also came back that this practice went back years and years, all the way to when he was PM. Abe redefined modern Japanese politics, was the longest serving PM in post-war history, and was the most successful politician of the democratic era, and yet being assassinated just turned into a series of events and brought widespread media and public attention, to the rot behind his political machine and definitively discredited him.
The Unification Church scandal led to Kishida, (another moderate, centrist candidate who also united other factions to defeating the Abe faction's chosen candidate, Takaichi) or at least enabled him, to largely purge his cabinet of Abe loyalists, and now Abe's favored protege has lost two elections to the leadership (she may or may not have a chance for a third run; the LDP is worse than the Tories, its a den of self-serving vipers cynically after power and with little loyalty; it wouldn't surprise me to see another ambitious conservative politician upstage Takaichi in the next leadership elections, which probably won't be that far in the future).
Now if only the opposition party situation wasn't a rampant mess, if only the Left wasn't completely fragmented, unprofessional, poorly organized, and incompetent, and if only there was actually a well-funded political movement like Hatoyama's coalition in 2009 to take advantage of years and years of LDP scandals and increasing voter dissatisfaction. Abe built an LDP that was too successful, but for most of the interior of the country, workers and common people haven't seen benefits from his policies and even in the cities, many are disenchanted with the arrogance and corruption of the LDP (a result of it being too successful). The increasingly conservative and less pragmatic bend of much of its membership also creates, I think, more opportunities for other parties. The next elections should bring them back down to earth more, but the different opposition parties need to have a plan, especially the Democratic Constitutional Party of Japan or whatever it's calling itself these days (it has fallen apart, dissolved, fused with other parties and renamed itself 3 times since losing power a little over a decade ago to Abe).
Great post. Thanks for explaining all of that!