No one could have foreseen that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s popularity would nosedive so soon after the Liberal Democratic Party triumphed in July’s election to the Upper House of the nation's parliament.
Until recently, Kishida’s government received consistently high approval ratings. But the LDP’s links to a controversial religious group, along with the costly state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have shaken Kishida’s political base, endangering the country’s fragile economic recovery.
The two main causes of Kishida’s declining approval ratings are interrelated. After Abe was assassinated during a campaign event in Nara in July, news outlets reported that his killer had a personal vendetta against the Unification Church, the religious movement whose extensive connections to LDP lawmakers are now at the center of a major political scandal. The LDP’s ties to the church and the controversy surrounding Abe’s state funeral have caused many to lose faith in the government.