Nine candidates are running in the Sept. 27 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, but it’s three LDP veterans acting as behind-the-scenes kingmakers whose decisions will heavily influence the result: Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, his predecessor Yoshihide Suga and LDP Vice President Taro Aso, also a former Japanese leader.
Two members of Kishida’s former faction — Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa — are running, although the prime minister hasn’t endorsed a successor. Aso is backing digital minister Taro Kono, who belongs to his faction, but told its members they weren't bound by that decision.
Suga, outside the party’s mainstream since stepping down as prime minister in 2021, appears to be in the strongest position among the three. He is backing former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who, along with former LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba, has topped recent media polls about who the public and party members prefer to lead the LDP.
In addition, a third candidate, economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, who was close to the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has scored highly in recent polls. The other six candidates have usually not done as well as these three.
The three kingmakers have two goals. The first is to ensure their preferred candidate finishes in one of the top two positions in the initial round of voting. The second is to deliver a victory for their choice in the runoff in the expectation of being able to continue — or even strengthen — their influence in the party afterward.
The first round of voting is split evenly between the 367 LDP parliamentary lawmakers and 367 rank-and-file party members. But votes of the latter are less important in the final round — while there are still 367 parliamentary votes, each of the 47 LDP prefectural chapters has just one vote.
That is where the kingmakers and their ability to cut deals with fellow Lower and Upper House members, and each other, on behalf of their preferred candidates becomes crucial.
At the moment, experts say, there are a number of possible scenarios for the runoff vote, assuming two of the three current media favorites advance to it.
“Aso is not willing to support Koizumi, Ishiba or Takaichi. His best hope is Kono, but Kono is less likely to go to the final round than those three,” says veteran political journalist Takuya Nishimura.
If the race comes down to Ishiba versus Koizumi, Aso will face a difficult choice. If it’s between Koizumi and Takaichi or between Ishiba and Takaichi, Aso may lean toward Takaichi more easily, given her closeness to Abe, whom Aso supported.
But Kishida's choices are more complicated. He may not dislike Ishiba as much as Aso, or he may be more willing than Aso to support Koizumi, Nishimura says. So it’s unclear if Kishida would be as, more, or less inclined than Aso to back Takaichi, who has sometimes criticized Kishida’s leadership, against Ishiba or Koizumi.
A Koizumi victory would, however, greatly increase the behind-the-scenes power of Suga, his strong ally and a fellow lawmaker from Kanagawa Prefecture, says political commentator Tetsuo Suzuki.
Suga might be appointed deputy prime minister or party vice president, or given another position where he’d be able to influence the young Koizumi’s decision-making on policy matters and personnel appointments, even behind his back.
The possibility of Suga returning to power through Koizumi might be enough to convince Aso and Kishida to back Takaichi or even Ishiba, Aso’s nemesis, Suzuki added.
“It's not that Aso and Kishida don't like Koizumi or that they like Ishiba,” he said. “It’s that they don't like Suga. Ishiba knows this, and might even meet with Aso to ask for his support.”
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