Unpacking the LDP's expected leadership race

With polling numbers at historical lows and a Liberal Democratic Party presidential election scheduled for September 2024, there is little chance that Fumio Kishida will still be prime minister come the end of the year.

LDP politicians are already talking about a leadership change, and the polls have shifted to who the public wants to see in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The top four among those polls were former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, digital minister Taro Kono and Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi.

But do any of them actually have a chance of succeeding Kishida? What steps will the LDP take to decide the next leader of Japan and what factors will matter the most in the party's decision making?

The first key factor is timing. While many may see Kishida’s departure any time before next September as premature, the average LDP prime minister since 1955 has only lasted about 2½ years in office — and Kishida will hit that mark in early 2024. In other words, for him to be replaced anytime between now and September wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.

For the LDP, the timing comes down to the politically viable windows for replacing Kishida. There are really only three: before the next ordinary session of the parliament begins in mid-to-late January; in the middle of the parliamentary session once the budget has passed; or between the ordinary and extraordinary sessions of parliament, typically between June and October.

A second consideration is the LDP’s objective in swapping leaders. If the party’s goal is simply to install a prime minister who can weather the political storm, it will seek a near-term reliever who can serve as a stopgap until the party works out a longer-term solution. If the goal is to get someone into the leadership position who can make an immediate and sweeping fix to public opinion, it will seek a “break glass” option who may not be the most favorable choice from an intraparty perspective, but someone who plays well among the public. And if the LDP is seeking a one-shot durable fix, it may simply seek to ride out the Kishida prime ministership until the next LDP party presidential race.

Another factor in the LDP’s decision making will be whether a prospective candidate is affiliated with a faction. While faction heads have been the traditional kingmakers inside the party, it would be difficult to justify to the public appointing any faction member to the nation’s top job unless the party was certain that there is no connection to the ongoing criminal investigation into faction-related slush funds and kickbacks.

In that case, the party may opt for an independent — someone unaffiliated with any faction. But with independents comprising less than 20% of the party’s sitting members of parliament, that candidate pool is already small.

Popularity also has to be taken into account. The LDP needs a prime minister who can yield a bump in the polls. The combination of economic malaise and scandals have created historically bad polling numbers for the party and the prime minister. While the LDP has gotten away with it thus far during Kishida’s tenure, it will only have so long before opposition parties get their acts together well enough to leverage the public’s mounting disdain.

Finally, the LDP must consider whether its successor to Kishida can be effective. Popularity can only take a leader so far, especially when the public will be expecting concrete results on the economy and the ongoing scandal. Given the challenging political environment, it would take a special kind of prime minister to navigate it with success.

For the LDP, there is risk that comes with that: Such a leader can usher in reforms that the party writ large may not want to accept, especially for dynastic, old guard. The party elites could well push for a prime minister who has less chance of being independently effective.

With all of this in mind, who is in the mix to succeed Kishida if a leadership change were to happen in the near term?

The most popular choice with the public is also the least popular within the party: Ishiba. He has long denounced internal LDP politics and continues to wear a black mark owing to his decision to leave the party briefly in the mid-'90s owing to his concerns over the ineffectiveness of LDP reforms.

The LDP could opt for Ishiba as someone who is nonfactional and popular, but the type of effectiveness he could have might be concerning for those who prefer traditional LDP politics. Ishiba would likely seek to push for legal reforms that force institutional changes within the LDP, which the public would probably support, and the party might be obliged to accept. This is not an outcome that most LDP politicians would prefer, so the party might look to another break glass option.

The high-risk, high-reward candidate is Koizumi. The uber-popular son of famed former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi gained a strong following in his early years as a politician, where he sought to brand himself as a maverick within the party. However, his political mettle was put to the test in 2019, when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe named Koizumi as the environment minister.

Koizumi’s personality was not enough to carry him through the technical expertise required to succeed in that position, particularly with politically contentious issues like managing radioactive material at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and climate change-related reforms. Since his less-than-stellar performance in that role, Koizumi has kept things low-key while seeking to rebuild his credibility.

To that end, Koizumi has found himself a new mentor: fellow Kanagawa Prefecture politician and former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. The two make a successful pair, as Koizumi has all the charm and personality that Suga does not possess, but who has the political acumen and the ability to run a government effectively. The challenge for this dynamic duo is that many LDP politicians know that Suga will not have forgotten who pushed him out of power in October 2021, and so a Koizumi prime ministership means they would become marked politicians.

The third most popular choice is Kono. Although Kono remains a popular figure among the Japanese public and many in the foreign diplomatic corps, he has the same problem as Ishiba: He lacks support within the LDP. Compound that with the fact that Kono has factional affiliation (in the faction that his father used to head, no less), and there are several factors working against his potential prime ministership.

The fourth option is Takaichi, who actually stands a better chance than the other three. She has been vocal in her desire to succeed Kishida, working to build a base of support. As a conservative independent, there was little hope for her to succeed without patronage from the Abe faction.

But now that the faction is floundering, its members may decide that it is better to rally behind any conservative who stands a chance to win rather than the other options available. Takaichi could also bring the added benefit of being the first female prime minister in Japanese history, which would give the party an opportunity to tout “reform,” even if it is only surface level.

The last option to consider is a wildcard who can serve as a stopgap. The idea would be to install a caretaker prime minister who has no record of scandals or political missteps. This person would hold the position until the LDP is able to institute a level of reform that is satisfactory to the public. Once that happens, the party can replace the caretaker with a more traditional choice.

The difference between this option and the previous four is that the caretaker would come into the position understanding his or her temporary role and demonstrating a willingness to step down when the time comes. Someone who fits this bill would be a person like Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, who has an unblemished record in her ministerial roles.

Kamikawa would also have no viable pathway to becoming the LDP president under traditional circumstances, so she could be willing to accept a temporary role as the government’s leader to take advantage of this window of opportunity, however narrow it may be. Nevertheless, since the LDP has never tried this course of action, the probability that it will select this option is low.

When and how will the LDP decide? The party first needs a better indication of what the Tokyo Public Prosecutor's Office investigation will reveal. Once the party has enough understanding of how much is going to become public and when, then its leaders will have enough confidence to push for a decision.

As for what will be decided, it is entirely up to the party itself given its standing majority in the parliament. The membership simply needs to decide who the next party president will be and then affirm that via a unified vote. If the LDP were going to demonstrate substantial reform, it would call for a full leadership election among all the party members across the country with no pressure from faction heads or party elites.

Such a step, however, may be too radical for a party that has done business a certain way for so long. Instead, we are more likely to see party elites once again negotiating behind closed doors based on the factors outlined above as they seek to leave this political storm with as much of their influence intact as possible.