As the Liberal Democratic Party prepares for a joint plenary meeting of its parliamentary members Friday, beleaguered Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba continues to face calls to resign over the party’s poor performance in the July 20 Upper House election.
The calls appear to come from a wide range of national and local LDP lawmakers, from younger members to former senior officials. But at the center of this movement are the same faces as ever — veteran political rivals and disgruntled conservative members of a now-dissolved party faction previously headed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who often clashed with Ishiba.
“Currently, votes from the younger generations (teens to those in their 40s) are drifting away from the LDP. Our division has been sounding the alarm about this for quite some time,” Yasutaka Nakasone, director of the party’s youth division, told reporters after a July 25 meeting with Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama.
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