Can Kōno thread the needle?
How Asō's support affects his candidacy
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On Monday, 26 August, Kōno Tarō held a press conference to announce his formal entry into the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) leadership race.
On Tuesday, the Asō faction, of which Kōno is a member, held a meeting in his home prefecture of Kanagawa, where faction leader Asō Tarō announced he would support Kōno’s candidacy – unlike in 2021, when he backed eventual winner Kishida Fumio over Kōno. Asō did not, however, demand that all 54 members of the faction back their colleague, suggesting that, at least in the first round, the Asō faction will not necessarily play a decisive role in the outcome.
The announcement came as something of a surprise, since Asō had given no indication following earlier meetings with Kōno – albeit meetings held before Kishida exited the race – that he was inclined to support Kōno this year. It was clear, however, that Asō felt constrained by Kōno’s presence in the race from endorsing another candidate, suggesting that his support, which seems like it will be unaccompanied by efforts to whip support within the faction or in the broader party for Kōno, was driven in part by a sense of duty, playing the part of the faction boss at a time when every other faction has fallen away but bowing to the reality that the crowded field means an intra-faction consensus would be difficult to reach. Given that Asō was unhappy even with modest compromises on campaign finance embraced by Kishida, it is unlikely that he is overly pleased, for example, with Kōno’s call for LDP lawmakers to return funds that they failed to report, which has ruffled feathers in the party. Kōno, for his part, may not want Asō or the faction to campaign too vigorously on his behalf, as he is still trying to run as a reformist who thinks more needs to be done to dissolve the factions and says he would not rely on factions for personnel appointments if elected.
As this last point suggests, Kōno may be trying to thread an impossibly small needle, a reformist backed, however tepidly, by the boss of the “undissolved” faction and a stalwart opponent of more comprehensive political reforms. Therefore, despite having secured Asō’s backing, it is difficult to conclude that the faction boss’s backing will fundamentally improve Kōno’s chances of victory, which, as I wrote earlier in the summer when he spoke with Asō, appear limited. While having even partial support from his Asō faction colleagues could give him a firmer base within the parliamentary party, his bigger problem is that he has sunk in the public’s – and LDP’s rank-and-file supporters’ – preferences for who should lead the party. If he cannot claw back some of that support, it is unlikely that he will receive enough support from lawmakers to make up the difference. Perhaps Kōno’s best chance is if LDP voters seeking a fresh, reformist leader look at the three reformists in the race – Kōno, Koizumi Shinjirō, and Ishiba Shigeru – and get cold feet about Koizumi’s youth and inexperience or Ishiba’s prickly relations with other parts of the party. Then they might find Kōno’s resume and willingness to work with Asō and other power brokers to be just right.
And Asō? He will surely have a more active role once the finalists are clear. In a second round, with the 367 lawmakers controlling 88% of the votes, he may be more reluctant to let the members of his 54-member faction vote their consciences, depending on the choices available of course.