Having defeated Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi in a runoff vote in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party presidential election last Friday, Shigeru Ishiba is set to assume the office of the next Prime Minister of the country. Will it be smooth sailing for him?
Observers say Ishiba is all set to be named Prime Minister after a parliamentary vote. He has extensive experience in public life, serving as a 12-term member of the Lower House. He represents the coastal prefecture of Tottori and is a Christian with rural roots, having been first elected way back in 1986. Ishiba is well-regarded among the rank-and-file members of the LDP.
In 2002, he served as the head of the then-Defence Agency under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He was Defence Minister in 2007 under former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. In 2008, Ishiba was appointed as the Agriculture Minister and has also served as the party’s Secretary-General.
Ishiba has long been known as an expert on national security and a champion of regional revitalisation. He is likely to focus on these related areas. Additionally, he is expected to concentrate on winning back the Japanese voters’ trust in the LDP, which has been heavily damaged by a political slush fund scandal. Fortunately for him, the LDP has governed Japan for all but four years since 1955. Despite dissatisfaction over inflation, a slowing economy, labour shortages, and the growing pressures of an ageing population, voters have shown little inclination to vote the party out of power.
It may, however, be a thorny path ahead for Ishiba. The LDP has been notorious for its powerful factional politics, which may haunt him. In the race for the party presidency, Ishiba’s margin of victory among Diet members was very narrow; he won the runoff with just 215 votes against Takaichi’s 194.
One cannot be sure how current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would accept his successor Ishiba within the party. The Kishida administration always viewed him as an outsider. In the past, Ishiba openly criticized Prime Minister Kishida over the way the latter handled the political funds scandal. LDP Vice President Taro Aso maintains a 54-member faction and strongly dislikes Ishiba.
Also, some in the LDP do not view Ishiba as a man of character. They recall that in 1993, Ishiba supported a no-confidence motion against then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. In 2008, Ishiba told then-Prime Minister Aso to step down.
Observers say it remains to be seen how Ishiba will persuade the wary Japanese public to get their nod for an additional defense budget. This is sure to be a pressing issue as the LDP has to face off against the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and its new leader, former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Noda has called for a ‘center-right conservative’ approach to winning votes.
Observers lament that Ishiba has little in the way of prescriptions to address Japan’s demographic challenges, with close to a third of the population now over 65. He has spoken of the need to engage China, form an Asian version of NATO, and renegotiate Japan’s alliance with the United States to make it more “equal.” However, all this may turn out to be mere rhetoric.
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