A day before Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was set to reshuffle his Cabinet on Wednesday, the most prominent positions appeared unlikely to change — until the eleventh hour.
Cabinet and party leadership changes are often used by prime ministers to signal a pivot in policy direction or to shore up their sagging popularity by appointing younger, fresher faces to new posts. Instead of a major overhaul, Kishida looked set to have chosen only a minor tinkering with his political machine late into Tuesday, with many powerful Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) veterans expected to stay where they are or receive senior posts as the prime minister prioritized internal party politics over worries about public popularity.
But the prime minister appeared to switch gears Tuesday evening, with Japanese media reports indicating that Kishida would replace current Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi with former Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa and switch out defense chief Yasukazu Hamada with Minoru Kihara, a onetime Japan Airlines executive.