Strange bedfellows | Today in Japanese politics

The LDP's three leading candidates look for support wherever they can find it, Noda faces some early challenges, and the finance minister calls out Takaichi

Thank you for reading Observing Japan. In light of the volume of activity in Japanese politics, “This Week in Japanese Politics” will become “Today in Japanese Politics” through the LDP election on 27 September. I cannot guarantee it will truly be published daily, but my goal will be to update this feature several times a week for paid subscribers.

I am also planning on staying up late Thursday evening to provide realtime analysis of the LDP’s leadership election. I will use Substack’s chat to answer questions and discuss as the vote unfolds.

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The rundown

As the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership campaign enters its final days, the three leading candidates are scrambling for support as they seek to secure a place in a runoff. Elsewhere in politics, Noda Yoshihiko, the newly elected leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), announced his lineup for the party’s executive, which is already causing some consternation within the CDP. Meanwhile, Noda has begun meeting with other opposition party leaders to discuss electoral coordination, but faces significant obstacles with potentially little time to spare until a snap election. In economic policy, Takaichi Sanae drew criticism from the finance minister, and in foreign policy, the Japanese government expressed its concern over a Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile test. Finally, in further reading, how Kōmeitō is looking at the LDP race.

LDP leadership election

LDP candidates join a debate on BS Fuji’s Prime News on 25 September. Source: @Ueno_Kenichiro on Twitter

NHK’s survey of the LDP race confirmed that Koizumi Shinjirō leads with lawmakers, with around fifty votes, with Takaichi Sanae and Ishiba Shigeru, the other top-tier candidates, in the thirties. Roughly seventy lawmakers have not indicated their votes. Meanwhile, the national broadcaster found that Ishiba leads with rank-and-file members, and that Ishiba, Takaichi, and Koizumi could take more than sixty percent of the vote.

A Mainichi Shimbun survey of LDP rank-and-file voters found that Ishiba could take roughly 100 of 368 votes, Koizumi roughly 80, and Takaichi roughly 70. Together with his strength among lawmakers, if Koizumi were to finish second with rank-and-file voters, he would be likely to make the runoff and have a high likelihood of winning the leadership.

Nevertheless, as the LDP race has entered its final days, Koizumi has courted senior party leaders who could influence sizable groups of lawmakers in the first and second rounds as he tries to bolster his advantage among lawmakers in the first round. On Tuesday, he spoke with Asō Tarō, who may be reluctant to back Koizumi, a candidate backed by his rival Suga Yoshihide, and may already be working to support Takaichi, but may be a plausible backer for Koizumi in a runoff against Ishiba. Koizumi also met with Sekō Hiroshige, the upper house lawmaker from the Abe faction temporarily banished from the party for his part in the kickback scandal, to see whether he can mobilize support from some of his ex-Abe faction colleagues on Koizumi’s behalf, outreach that his backer, former prime minister Mori Yoshirō, may also be doing. Koizumi has also met with Takeda Ryōta from the former Nikai faction and members of the former Kishida faction as he seeks to build a cross-party coalition that can power him to victory.