Abe may be gone, but his color remains

On Wednesday, 10 August, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio announced a new lineup for his cabinet and the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party. Most notably about this reshuffle, of course, was its timing: although Kishida had indicated after last month’s upper house elections that he would announce a new team in late August or early September, he unexpectedly announced last week that he would accelerate the timetable for a reshuffle to 10 August.

This decision reflects that only a month removed from an electoral victory that seemed to mark the beginning of a “three golden years” for the prime minister, Kishida is already in an uncomfortable situation. Whatever bump he received in his approval ratings has dissipated; polls have recorded double-digit drops in his approval, perhaps in large part due to the controversy surrounding relationships between the LDP lawmakers and the former Unification Church triggered by the late Abe Shinzō’s murder by a man angered at his mother’s ruinous contributions to the church. A recent NHK poll, for example, found that eighty-two percent of respondents are not satisfied with how politicians and parties have accounted for their relationships with the church. The controversy over the Unification Church may be feeding into controversy surrounding the state funeral for Abe that will be held on 27 September. That NHK poll that fifty percent disapproved of the state funeral; only thirty-six percent approval.

Accordingly, Kishida moved quickly to reshuffle his cabinet, that tried-and-true method used by beleaguered prime ministers to change the political narrative in challenging moments. This reshuffle – including the slogan used by the prime minister to describe it, “a cabinet for carrying out policies” – felt a lot like an Abe reshuffle. Kishida retained the core members of the leadership team. Suzuki Shunichi stayed on as finance minister; Hayashi Yoshimasa as foreign minister; and Matsuno Hirokazu as chief cabinet secretary. Transport Minister Saitō Tetsuo (Kōmeitō’s lone cabinet member) and Economic Revitalization Minister Yamagiwa Taishirō also stayed in their posts.

Although fourteen of nineteen cabinet posts were replaced, the newcomers include familiar faces like Kōno Tarō, who will be the digital affairs minister; Katō Katsunobu, who will be minister of health, labor, and welfare for third time in the past five years; and Nishimura Yasutoshi, who after a challenging stint as the Covid-19 coordinator returns to government as the minister of economy, trade, and industry, a big promotion for the Abe faction member (and former bureaucrat at METI’s predecessor, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry). As expected, Kishida removed Abe protégé Takaichi Sanae from the leadership of the LDP’s policy affairs council, but instead of sending her to the backbenches, he gave her a ministerial portfolio for economic security, an important issue for the government and an issue that was central to her LDP leadership bid last year. And replacing her as the LDP’s policy chief is another Abe lieutenant, Hagiuda Kōichi, who publicly griped about having to leave the METI post for a party role withs significantly less power. Kishi Nobuo was released as expected given poor health, but he will stay on as an adviser to the prime minister on national security – and the new defense minister, Hamada Yasukazu, had been defense minister under Asō Tarō from 2008-2009. Speaking of Asō, he stays on as a deputy party leader, and Motegi Toshimitsu will remain as secretary-general.

In addition to the inclusion of experienced and familiar faces in some of the cabinet’s most important posts – reserving lower-tier cabinet posts for first-time cabinet ministers – Kishida also generally respected the balance of factions in the LDP. Despite speculation that Kishida might use the uncertainty regarding the future of the Abe faction, still the party’s largest, to reduce its influence, four of nineteen cabinet members are Abe faction members. Kishida made clear with this cabinet and LDP leadership lineup that he wants to maintain peace and stability within the party. Perhaps fitting with his low posture image as a capable listener, the prime minister seems content to work with the party he has inherited than attempt to impose a liberal “Kishida color” on a party that still looks a lot like the party that Abe dominated for most of a decade. On the whole, it is a “safe driving” cabinet, consistent with Kishida’s approach since the start of his government. Even with Abe gone, Kishida is still trying to keep the party’s right wing inside the tent.

As Kishida made clear in his remarks to the press Wednesday, this is a cabinet with a significant amount of work to do. “In this cabinet reshuffle,” he said, “I have decided to appoint cabinet ministers with experience and the ability to respond to the mountain of challenges as a ‘cabinet for carrying out policies,’ responding to emergencies while maintaining a policy framework.” In laying out the priorities for the government, he identified them as: (1) strengthening Japan’s defense, managing not only the revisions to the National Security Strategy, National Defense Program Guidelines, and Mid-Term Defense Plan by the end of the year but also the defense budget for next fiscal year; (2) implementing the economic security law passed in the spring; (3) “economic revitalization through the implementation of New Capitalism”; (4) managing the response to a new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic; and (5) strengthening childcare and other policies to combat the falling birthrate. It is also a government that will have to carry out Kishida’s intentions to move ahead with restarting nuclear reactors in the interest of energy security and cost management. (Also note that there was no mention of constitutional revision at any point during Kishida’s press conference.)

That said, it is still uncertain what direction Kishida will go on some of the most important policy questions facing his government. When asked about defense policy, for example, he again sidestepped a question about Abe’s call for a commitment to raise defense spending to two percent of GDP, saying only that “we will fundamentally strengthen our own defense capabilities within five years” and indicating that his government “will not exclude any and all options when it comes to doing what is necessary to defend the lives and livelihoods of the people, including so-called counterattack capabilities.” Meanwhile, although the recently strengthening yen could take some pressure off household budgets, Kishida still faces questions about the ability of his New Capitalism initiative to deliver higher incomes. And while the question did not come up in his press conference, in the coming months, the prime minister will need to begin preparing for the leadership transition at the Bank of Japan, a decision with major implications for both monetary and fiscal policy.

In the immediate term, of course, this government will mostly have to fend off questions about links to the Unification Church, with at least five new cabinet ministers having received money in some form from church-related organizations, and others having attended events, appeared in publications, or had other contact with groups. The opposition will try to score political points on these connections – Constitutional Democratic Party leader Izumi Kenta called the new cabinet, “a cabinet for concealing the Unification Church” – but this issue will likely fade, and with Abe’s state funeral approaching, that issue too will eventually no longer weigh on the government’s approval ratings.

What will remain is a government that still retains a deeply “Abe color” even after Abe’s death. But the fundamental question that has hung over Kishida since he took office last year remains. Can an Abe-colored government with a more moderate face can succeed in tackling some of the hardest questions Abe left for his successors, whether in national security, macroeconomic policy, and economic growth over the long term?