Japan’s perennial political underdog finally gets a win

Last Friday, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party chose its next leader and, by extension, the next prime minister — and for the first time in ages, the house didn’t win.

In other words, the winning candidate was not the choice of a handful of party elites who gamed the system. Instead, a narrow victory went to Shigeru Ishiba, a politician who has long faced headwinds inside the party and who now promises to bring a new brand of leadership to the country.

The outcome left more questions than answers. Are formalized factions inside the LDP dead? Will Ishiba usher in a new era of political reform? Will there be major economic, security or foreign policy changes? Nobody can credibly answer those questions right now, but the way in which he won the election offers some insight as to what the future may hold.

What happened?

As expected, the vote last Friday went to a runoff because no candidate could secure a majority in the first round. The top three vote-getters were Ishiba, economic security minister Sanae Takaichi and former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi. This was unsurprising as they were clearly the three most popular choices both among the public and within the party, but it was unpredictable which two would make it to the runoff. With a field of nine candidates, there was a significant amount of politicking that happened. In addition to the campaign speeches and media engagements, each candidates’ backers were meeting behind the scenes to broker deals and to block other coalitions from forming.

Along the way, Koizumi faltered. The stress of campaigning across the country and the high expectations levied upon the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appeared to take its toll, and rather than gathering momentum ahead of the vote, his campaign lost steam. He was stuck trying to woo reform-minded supporters from the more experienced and capable Ishiba and from conservative camps who had a clear ideological pick in Takaichi.

Koizumi’s waning support became immediately apparent as Takaichi pulled away quickly in prefectural voting. While it was clear that Ishiba would perform well among the local LDP chapters, Takaichi ended up securing the most votes of all the candidates.

In doing so, she outperformed expectations that left many wondering how she was able to do this. In particular, there will be a lingering question of whether her controversial distribution of policy pamphlets to LDP members ahead of the formal campaign period gave her an unfair advantage.

As surprising as Takaichi’s first round performance was, the outcome of the runoff literally elicited audible gasps from the LDP audience as the election committee read the results. At 215 votes to 194, Ishiba had done what he was unable to do four times before and became the LDP president.

How did this happen?

Although Ishiba was the public’s top choice to become prime minister, he was the underdog in this race. LDP power brokers had broken promises and undermined him so many times in the past that it seemed only likely that it would happen again in this race.

So, how did he manage to achieve a different outcome this time?

It is too early to determine which factors contributed the most to his victory, but there are four that stand out.

The first is the “coalition of the scorned” — that is, those political camps within the LDP who had been slighted by traditional power brokers like LDP Vice President Taro Aso. While the votes were secret, it appears that support from the blocs associated with former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida went to Ishiba. Each had their frustrations with the traditional LDP system: Suga was forced out of office only a year after becoming prime minister while Kishida has repeatedly faced opposition to all of his “new capitalism” initiatives and is now just hoping that his achievements during his tenure do not get reversed by a conservative candidate like Takaichi.

As a result, those who voted for Koizumi — who was backed by Suga — along with candidates Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa all reportedly shifted to Ishiba in the second round (Hayashi and Kamikawa belonged to Kishida’s now-defunct faction). Those votes made all the difference.

The second factor was all those seeking a future within the LDP who would not be typical choices under the old party system. That system privileged faction heads and power brokers, meaning that only a small percentage of LDP parliamentarians would ever have a shot at the top job if not for personality-based patronage. Elevating a candidate like Ishiba undermines the traditional system for leadership selection, blazing a trail for many party members who may not have had one in the past.

The third factor was pragmatism. While many LDP politicians may not agree with Ishiba’s approach to politics, he is transparent, consistent and predictable. He has criticized the ruling-party but not as a means for self-promotion. He has challenged policy decisions but not taken deliberate steps to undermine the prime minister’s authority.

Meanwhile, some may have seen Takaichi as too much of a wild card. Takaichi often cast herself as the vanguard for Shinzo Abe-esque politics, but the ideologies and approaches she brought to this election were much more reminiscent of the 2006 Abe, whose administration collapsed within a year, than the 2012 Abe who understood the importance of consensus building. She has only validated this perception of political impertinence with her refusal to accept a key party leadership position after the election

Finally, there is self-preservation. Many LDP politicians might have believed that Ishiba is the strongest choice for leading the party through a general election, particularly those in battleground constituencies. Although the party would have been able to tout Takaichi as the first female prime minister, she carries policies that appeal more to the conservative base within the LDP than the public writ large. Ishiba’s new brand of leadership is something that offers mass appeal and undercuts the anti-LDP narratives that opposition parties typically champion during an election period.

What does this mean for the LDP?

Ishiba’s ascendency to the nation’s top job opens a path to a new era of LDP politics, but that does not mean he will have an easy time traversing it. His margin of victory was slim, meaning that there is still a sizable portion of the party who will be resistant to his initiatives.

An impatient prime minister would move quickly and forcefully en route to failure. However, Ishiba is well aware of the need for steady, incremental change within the current LDP system. His immediate focus will be on negotiating Cabinet appointments and leading the party through a Lower House election, at which point he will be able to assess how much political capital he actually has to spend on policy priorities.

Meanwhile, it is unclear whether a factional system will persist. Democratic politics tends to fuel a system of patronage and voting blocs, so while “factions” may be dead, the LDP is likely to continue seeing faction-like groups. The Ishiba administration will seek to implement and reinforce changes in the party's systematic practices but will still need to deal with those vestiges of the old system as it does so.

Ishiba’s next steps

Things are already moving quickly for the Ishiba administration as he spent the weekend deliberating Cabinet and subcabinet appointments. Those decisions will be formalized on Tuesday after the parliament convenes and the ruling coalition votes for Ishiba to become the prime minister.

Those Cabinet appointments will signal Ishiba’s approach to managing intraparty politics while indicating some of the deals he had to make to secure his victory last week. Since Cabinet appointments are coveted among LDP members, prime ministers have used them to reward allies, punish foes and curry support. While Ishiba will seek to move away from those practices, the politics of the LDP system will not allow him to eschew them immediately.

The next step will be calling a snap election. Ishiba has already indicated that he will speak with opposition parties before making such a move, so Ishiba may not dissolve the Lower House until mid-October for a mid-November general election.

Ishiba’s victory in the LDP presidential race was just the next domino to fall in a critical chain of events that will reshape the Japanese political landscape, but it was an all-important one. It has signaled a major shift inside the LDP, and while major policy changes are not expected in the near term, the new administration will be seeking to establish a new baseline for political machinations both within the party and in its engagement with external audiences.

Ishiba has pledged to take Japan to a “new future,” and it is now on his administration to figure out how far and how fast they will try to go.