A post-factional, but not non-factional election
What the nine candidates' endorsements reveal about the LDP campaign
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Readers can also find my views on the LDP race in the following articles:
Craig Mellow, “U.S. Steel Deal Looks Dead. Japan Won’t Hold a Grudge,” Barron’s
Daniel Sneider, “Who Does Washington Want To Be Japan's Prime Minister,” The Oriental Economist
Alastair Gale and Yuki Hagiwara, “Japan’s Leadership Race is Wide Open as Party Elders Retreat,” Bloomberg
The twenty endorsements each of the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) nine candidates needed to secure to enter the race offered the first glimpse at the “shape” of each candidate’s support from the parliamentary party, which will cast 367 votes in the first round as well as in the second round, if necessary.
By looking at the ages, length of service, and current and former faction affiliations, we can learn something about each candidate’s appeal and what strategy each might pursue as they try to prevail in the leadership election.
For example, Kobayashi Takayuki, a fourth-term lawmaker running in part to represent the LDP’s more junior lawmakers, has both the most junior group of endorsers in terms of the number of lower house electoral victories (the key measure of seniority) and the second-youngest group in terms of average age. His eighteen endorsers from the House of Representatives – he has only two from the House of Councillors – have won an average of 3.166 elections. The average age of all twenty is 55.65; the median age is 52.5, reflecting the impact of eighty-year-old Esaki Tetsuma on the average. Fourteen of the twenty are younger than sixty. His support is also heavily male, with only one female endorser. It also suggests broad support across the party’s factions: while five of twenty are from the Nikai faction (like Kobayashi himself), it also includes four ex-Abe faction members, four Aso faction members, two from the ex-Moriyama faction, one from the ex-Kishida faction, and even one from former prime minister Suga Yoshihide’s more loosely organized group.
Other candidates are more heavily reliant on a single faction. Motegi Toshimitsu, the head of his own faction, drew heavily on this group, with fourteen of twenty coming from faction members, with three ex-Abe faction, two Aso faction members, and one independent (Kajiyama Hiroshi) also supporting him. He not only relied on his own faction, however. He also looked to the faction’s most-junior members, with seven endorsements from upper or lower house lawmakers who have won only one election. Of his fourteen lower house endorsements, only two have won more than five elections, the threshold that separates junior from senior legislators. The average service time for his lower house endorsers is only 3.57 electoral victories, the second lowest. His endorsers are also among the youngest of all candidates, with an average age of 56.05 and a median age of 56.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa, a senior leader in the now-former Kishida faction, likewise drew heavily on the faction’s ranks, with fifteen of twenty endorsements coming from ex-Kishida faction members. Reflecting Hayashi’s long tenure in the House of Councillors, his endorsements are also evenly divided between upper and lower house members. His supporters are relatively junior – with an average service time for lower house members of 4.2 victories, an average age for all endorsers of 56.65, and a median age of 57.5 – but Hayashi also stands out as the only candidate not to have a female lawmaker among his endorsers.
The third candidate heavily reliant on a single faction is Kōno Tarō, perhaps not surprisingly given that faction leader Asō Tarō “blessed” his candidacy without ordering the faction to support him. Nevertheless, all but two of Kōno’s twenty endorsements are from Asō faction members. His endorsers are relatively more senior – an average of 4.53 electoral victories for his fifteen lower house endorsers, an average age of 58.4 for all endorsers, and a median age of 60 – but he did receive endorsements from young first-term lawmakers, including thirty-three-year-old Tsuchida Shin and thirty-five-year-old Eri Arifiya.
Takaichi Sanae also relies predominantly on a single faction, with fifteen endorsements from ex-Abe faction members and the remainder coming from the Nikai (3) and Asō (2) factions. Given that Takaichi left the faction in 2011, however, the strength of her support from ex-Abe faction members may have more to do with ideology – and her relationship with the late Abe Shinzō – than factional affiliation. This dependence also means that her endorsers are relatively more involved in the kickback scandal compared with other candidates. Her support is relatively senior, with an average seniority of 4.54 electoral victories, an average age of 62.55, and a median age of 63. Her support is also heavily male, with only two female endorsers, and heavily reliant on the upper house, with nine of eleven – including chief endorser Nakasone Hirofumi – coming form the House of Councillors.
To some extent, Ishiba Shigeru also relied on his now-defunct faction for endorsements, with seven of his twenty coming from ex-Ishiba faction members. However, he also received seven endorsements from lawmakers with no factional affiliation and another five from Nikai faction members, suggesting more idiosyncratic support within the parliamentary party. His twenty endorsers including two prominent former members of the Democratic Party of Japan, Nagashima Akihisa and Hosono Gōshi. Ishiba’s endorsers especially stand out as the oldest group among the nine candidates. His sixteen lower house endorsers have average seniority of 5.625 election victories; the average age of all twenty endorsers is 63.6 years old, while the median age is 63.
The remaining three candidates have more diverse bases of support. Koizumi Shinjirō’s twenty endorsers are more independent – eight are independents and five are from Suga’s group – and relatively more junior, with an average seniority of 4.375 electoral victories for his sixteen endorsers from the House of Representatives. Of these sixteen, eleven have fewer than five victories; Noda Seiko (10 victories) and Yamamoto Yūji (11) both raise the average, as his lower house endorsers have a median of four victories. They are also among the youngest groups, with an average age of 55.45 and a median of 56. He has the third-most female endorsers, with four.
Katō Katsunobu may have the most balanced group of endorsers, reflecting his good relationships with different parts of the party, a conservative who was close with Abe but is also close with Suga and belongs to the mainstream Motegi faction. Six of his endorsers are his Motegi faction colleagues; four are ex-Abe faction; four have had no factional affiliation; four are from the Nikai faction; one is from the Asō faction; and one belonged to the Moriyama faction. This group is not overly senior – average seniority for his twelve lower house endorsers is 4.66 electoral victories – and balanced between old and young, with an average age of 59.75 and a median of 59.5. His endorsements also include five first-term lawmakers, two from the lower house and three from the upper house, and five women, the second-most among the nine candidates.
The most female support is, not surprisingly, for Kamikawa Yōko, who has made her potential to become Japan’s first female prime minister central to her campaign. Seven of her twenty endorsers are women. Her support is relatively more senior: her thirteen lower house endorsers have an average seniority of five elections, the average age of all of her endorsers is 59.7, and the median age is 59. She is also, surprisingly, heavily dependent on the support of Asō faction members, with nine of her twenty endorsements coming from what is now the party’s largest. This highlights a challenge facing Kōno, who cannot in fact count on the support of all of his factional colleagues, but also suggests that Kamikawa could lose out to Hayashi in the competition for ex-Kishida faction members, as she received endorsements from only four compared to Hayashi’s fifteen.
Ultimately, what this data suggests is that while this LDP leadership election is “post-factional,” it is not non-factional. The factions might not be corralling their members or controlling who is running in the race (clearly), but the candidates are still relying on old factional ties for support as they try to build winning coalitions in the campaign. But the fracturing of factional support – for example, the division of the Asō faction between Kōno and Kamikawa, or the distribution of ex-Abe and Nikai faction members across several candidates – suggests that to win candidates will have no choice but to find a way to appeal across the party, whether that appeal is based on gender, age, ideology, or some other feature.