The Bank of Japan's decision to end its protracted period of unorthodox monetary easing gives Prime Minister Fumio Kishida an opportunity to move the nation on from the legacy of "Abenomics" and provides his deeply unpopular administration with a degree of momentum ahead of an upcoming general election.
Kishida has pushed his Liberal Democratic Party's biggest faction, formerly led by the late Shinzo Abe, to disband after a political funds scandal came to light in late 2023, while urging influential lawmakers in the group to resign from key Cabinet and LDP posts.
The LDP, which has been in power for most of the period since 1955, has come under intense scrutiny as some of its groups, including the Abe faction, neglected for years to report portions of income from fundraising parties, creating slush funds in the process.