Emerging from Abe’s Long Shadow: Change Looms for Japan’s Ruling LDP

Continuity and Change under Kishida

Looking back, historians will surely characterize 2024 as a turning point for Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party. When a new leader of the perennially ruling LDP is elected on September 27, it will mark not just the end of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s three-year tenure but also the close of the long “Abe era”—a 12-year span dominated by the influence of the late Abe Shinzō, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister (2006–7 and 2012–20) and leader of the LDP’s largest faction.

Let us begin by assessing the Kishida administration and its relationship to former Prime Minister Abe, focusing first of all on policy.

In the area of defense and security, the Kishida cabinet not only adhered to the course set by Abe but took his hawkish policies a step further. Epitomizing this trend was the decision to include the acquisition of long-range counterstrike capabilities in Japan’s national defense strategy.

In September 2020, just before leaving office, Abe issued an unprecedented “prime minister’s statement” as a parting gift to his successor. Unlike previous documents of the same name, this was not an official policy deliberated and approved by the cabinet. It was simply a record of Abe’s own observations and convictions regarding the security challenges facing Japan under the next administration. While Abe did not spell out the need for a missile counterstrike capability, that is clearly what he was driving at. The statement was a powerful expression of Abe’s unwavering commitment to beefing up Japan’s national defense apparatus, unconstrained by the nation’s pacifist Constitution.

Abe’s successor, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide, was unable to tackle this challenge during his year in office. Instead, it fell to Kishida to complete Abe’s unfinished business. This groundbreaking policy change, accompanied by an increase in defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, was incorporated in the latest editions of three key defense documents—the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program—adopted by the cabinet in December 2022.

Similarly, Kishida’s pivot toward nuclear power went far beyond anything Abe or Suga had thought possible. In 2023, the cabinet approved a new energy policy promoting the construction of next-generation reactors and extending the permitted operational life of existing power plants.

Where Kishida asserted his independence from Abe was in the economic realm. His call for a “new capitalism,” his government’s signature policy, was an explicit rejection of the neoliberal line that had dominated previously. To be sure, the administration made only limited progress toward Kishida’s “virtuous circle of growth and distribution.” But its program of massive public investment in the semiconductor industry—a sharp departure from the principle of curtailing the role of government in favor of private-sector initiatives—would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Kishida also facilitated a shift in monetary policy through his appointment of Ueda Kazuo as governor of the Bank of Japan. Tapped to replace Kuroda Haruhiko when the latter’s 10-year term ended in April 2023, Ueda has orchestrated a gradual exit from the unconventional, ultraloose policy Kuroda had pursued since his appointment by Abe a decade earlier.

Abe, Start and Finish

That said, Kishida was never free from Abe’s influence.

What ultimately brought Kishida down, of course, was his poor handling of the LDP political funds scandal that broke near the end of last year. And at the core of that scandal was the Abe faction’s years-long practice of channeling unreported proceeds from fundraising parties into members’ personal slush funds.

The slide in the Kishida cabinet’s approval ratings began earlier, however. One factor in that decline was the revelation of close ties between LDP politicians and the Unification Church, a situation brought to light by Abe’s assassination in July 2022.

In a sense, Abe was also the key force behind Kishida’s rise to power. In the LDP leadership election of 2021, Kōno Tarō might well have captured a majority in the first round of voting had not Abe, leader of the LDP’s largest faction, endorsed dark horse Takaichi Sanae, forcing a runoff between Kōno and Kishida. How ironic that the “father” of the Kishida cabinet should also be a factor in its downfall!

Compounding the irony is the fact that Kishida, in turn, brought the Abe era to an end through the dissolution of the LDP factions.

The LDP’s Pendulum Politics

As many have pointed out, the LDP’s decades-long hold on power owes much to the party’s ability to adapt to swings in public opinion. As an assemblage of diverse factions, it has been able to respond to crises by passing the mantle from right to left and back again. In this way, the LDP has created the appearance of internal “regime change,” effecting a pseudo transfer of power even while maintaining its single-party control of the government.

From the fiercely ideological Kishi Nobusuke (prime minister 1957–60), who presided over the highly divisive revision of the Japan-US Security Treaty, the pendulum swung to the pragmatic, economically oriented Ikeda Hayato (1960–64). From Satō Eisaku (1964–72), with his roots in the bureaucratic elite, power passed to the earthy, populist Tanaka Kakuei (1972–74). From Tanaka, tainted by money scandals, it went to Miki Takeo (1974–76), selected for his image of incorruptibility.

Over the next decade, the leaders of the LDP’s five major factions took turns in the prime minister’s office, allowing the party to keep rivalries under control and maintain an internal balance of power.

In the face of crisis, however, the party abandoned factional politics and turned to fresh faces who embodied change and reform. In the storm that followed the Recruit corruption scandal of the late 1980s, in which all the major factions were implicated, the mantle passed to Kaifu Toshiki (1989–91), whom the public saw as untainted by money politics. In 2001, as Japan’s post-bubble stagnation dragged on, another maverick rose to power, reflecting the people’s deep frustration with the bankrupt economic policies of the Tanaka and Takeshita factions. Against this background, Koizumi Jun’ichirō (2001–6) captured a devoted public following by vowing to “smash the LDP” from within. The ruling party went along as a matter of survival.

In fact, Kishida’s own mild-mannered, consensus-building style was initially welcomed as a breath of fresh air following the tough, high-handed “my way or the highway” leadership of Abe and Suga. Now, however, another crisis is at hand. Where will the pendulum land next?

An LDP Election Like No Other

The September 2024 election is unlike any other in the party’s history. Let us review its distinctive features.

The most obvious change is the vastly diminished role of factional politics now that every faction except that of former Prime Minister Asō Tarō has announced its disbandment as a registered political organization. Without the ability to raise and distribute political funds, the factions have far less power over their members. As a consequence, the endorsements the candidates have secured in order to qualify tend to cut across faction lines, and the actual voting is expected to do so as well.

The second outstanding feature is the relative youth of the candidates. LDP elections are typically contested by veteran politicians on the far side of 60, but this time we are seeing significant challenges from whippersnappers in their forties. The outcome could even yield a clean sweep of the LDP’s old guard.

The prominence of women candidates is also noteworthy. For some time now, women have been breaking into the traditionally male preserve of Japanese politics, particularly within the LDP. As in the 2021 LDP election, women parliamentarians have banded together to give female candidates enough endorsements to run.

Impact on Japanese Politics

Amid the ferment of defactionalization, generational change, and women’s empowerment, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the race and its overall impact on Japanese politics.

The slush fund scandal—just the latest instance of money’s corrupting influence on the LDP—has left voters deeply disillusioned. That said, the party is in little danger of losing control of the government, given the sad state of the opposition. Perhaps the most one can hope for is that the LDP’s impending internal regime change will be accompanied by some much-needed change at the policy level.

The next president of the LDP will lead the party and the nation into the post-Abe era. Will he or she be equipped to restore the people’s trust in politics and lay out a clear plan for national revitalization?

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Kishida Fumio, left, submits his consumption tax recommendations to Prime Minister Abe Shinzō as chair of the LDP Policy Research Council on November 22, 2018. © Jiji.)