The crisis of the 2012 system
Welcome to a new era of instability
The first major polls following the reports that the Abe faction is under investigation for a wide-reaching slush fund scheme suggest that whatever hopes Prime Minister Kishida Fumio had of shifting the blame to the Abe faction and reinventing his government as committed to political reform are vanishing. If Kishida did in fact have window of opportunity to pin this scandal on the Abe faction and assume the posture of a reformer who would clean house, it appears to have snapped shut. The public is not making any distinctions – 70% of all respondents in the Mainichi poll think the LDP should dissolve its factions – and is holding Kishida and the LDP as a whole responsible for the suspected law-breaking.
The findings in the Mainichi Shimbun’s new poll are particularly dire for Kishida and his party. The Kishida government, already at 21% approval/74% disapproval in Mainichi’s previous poll, lost another ten points in net approval, falling to 16% approval/79% disapproval. That disapproval rating is the worst figure in the history of Mainichi’s opinion polling, dating back to 1947. The 16% approval rating is the lowest figure since the end of Kan Naoto’s government in 2011.
But as bad the headline numbers for the Kishida government are, the poll’s internals are worse. The LDP’s support has also plunged, dropping seven points to 17%. Among remaining LDP supporters, confidence in Kishida is plummeting. 51% say that the faction funds scandal is a serious matter. 52% say they don’t think Kishida can exercise the necessary leadership to strengthen campaign finance laws. 45% say that the LDP should eliminate its factions. Meanwhile, roughly 70% of Kōmeitō supporters say that they do not support the Kishida government. The numbers for independents are even more abysmal. Only 7% say they support the government; 86% disapprove. 87% say that the scandal is serious, and 87% also say that Kishida cannot exercise the necessary leadership to strengthen campaign finance laws. The situation is bad enough for the LDP that the Constitutional Democratic Party has actually gained three points to 14%, passing Ishin no Kai to become the top-ranked opposition party again.
Asahi also has a new poll that is marginally less bleak – 23% approval (-2), 66% disapproval (+1), and for the parties, LDP 23% (-4), CDP 5% (-), Ishin 4% (-1) – but still full of bad news for Kishida. 58% of respondents said that Kishida should quit as soon as possible; only 28% said he should continue. 82% said that he cannot restore confidence in politics; only 11% said that he can. 74% disapprove of his response to the scandal, only 16% approve. 81% said that campaign financial regulations should be strengthened.1
The Nikkei Shimbun’s new poll looks similar to Asahi’s. Approval dropped four points to 26%; disapproval six points to 68%. This is the worst approval rating in a Nikkei poll for an LDP-led government since the Asō government in 2009. 67% said that Kishida is responsible for the scandal. 83% said that new rules governing fundraising parties are needed, while 91% – including 88% of LDP supporters – said that explanations from party leaders and faction bosses have been insufficient. Finally, although respondents in the Nikkei poll are less eager to see Kishida leave immediately (34%), 53% said he should stay only until the end of his term as LDP leader in September, while only 8% said he should stay on as long as possible.
This is a once-in-a-generation political crisis. Whether the comparisons to the Recruit scandal, which rocked the LDP in the late 1980s and helped clear the way to the 1993 change of government, are apt, the polling points to an utter loss of confidence in the prime minister and his government, the LDP, and the political system as a whole. Without the public behind him, Kishida’s ability to impose his will on the LDP is vanishing. Between the Unification Church scandal and the Abe faction’s slush funds, public trust in the LDP – particularly among independents – is shattered.
And it could still get worse. The Tokyo public prosecutors have begun questioning Abe faction lawmakers. Meanwhile, Mainichi reports that secretaries who have worked for Abe faction members have told the newspaper that the kickback scheme long predates 2018, although the prosecutors are focused on the last five years due to the statute of limitations for campaign finance violations. NHK says that Abe faction secretaries have indicated that orders to conceal kickbacks came directly from the faction itself.
As such, this is not a political crisis that will be resolved by changing replacing some cabinet ministers or even the prime minister himself.2 The LDP is likely in for a prolonged bout of internal strife, as the factions struggle for survival (and to preserve their prerogatives), reformers and would-be reformers jockey for advantage. The most popular choices to lead the LDP – Ishiba Shigeru (17% and 21% in Asahi and Nikkei respectively), Koizumi Shinjirō (16% and 19%), and Kōno Tarō (11% and 12%) – have long been the popular favorites but have struggled to rally support within the LDP, and it is unclear whether this scandal will change that, while a contender like Motegi Toshimitsu, the LDP secretary-general who heretofore seemed like the most likely successor for Kishida, is at 2% and 1% support in those polls. It is unclear who, if anyone, will be able to satisfy the public’s demands for reform and popular legitimacy more broadly while also being acceptable to various LDP power brokers.3 The result could be a series of weak, short-lived prime ministers unable to heal the LDP’s internal divisions or articulate a post-Abe identity for the party. An early Kishida exit could only make the situation worse as the party would have to first select a leader to serve out the remainder of Kishida’s term, and then hold another election in September to serve a new three-year leadership term.
But it is far from certain whether the still-fractured opposition will be able to exploit this crisis to drive the ruling coalition from power whenever a general election comes. The Asahi poll found that only 15% think that the current opposition parties can serve effectively as a force to rival the LDP. With the Ishin no Kai still determined to run as much against the CDP as the LDP, the LDP would still enter a general election favored to win, although questions about the future of the LDP-Kōmeitō suggest that the range of possible scenarios following a general election could be greater.4 Both the CDP and Ishin still have significant work to do to convince voters that either is ready for power, or else to find a way to cooperate strategically in improve their chances in a general election. However, the predictable stability that characterized Japanese politics since 2012 is in all likelihood over.
That stability, it turns out, rested on the effective demobilization of roughly half the electorate, deepening into a widespread sense of malaise in Japanese democracy. And this is where the malaise has led. A prime minister who has lost the confidence of the public and increasingly of his own ruling coalition; a ruling party rife with ethical lapses at best and outright criminality at worst; opposition parties unable to motivate or inspire voters despite deepening dissatisfaction with the LDP; and a growing portion of the electorate that is convinced the political system is not working.
Now, the LDP will likely face a wide-ranging battle between reformers and old guard – reminiscent of the 1990s and 2000s – over the role of factions in party governance, campaign finance, and the party’s relationship with the electorate more broadly. Opposition parties will face their own soul-searching to a lesser extent as they try to position themselves to unseat the LDP when an election finally comes and, more broadly, articulate a vision for a more representative, responsive politics that reengages voters who have grown disgusted over the past decade. This is likely the beginning stage of a crisis that could play out for years to come, as parties, their lawmakers, activists, and voters engage in the work of restoring Japanese democracy again.5
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Asahi also asked about the since-overshadowed discovery of Kishida’s meeting with Newt Gingrich and some highly ranked officials from a Unification Church affiliate. 72% are not convinced by Kishida’s claim that he was unaware of the UC connection. And only 25% think the LDP has actually severed ties with the church.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that Hayashi Yoshimasa, the new chief cabinet secretary, has been called into a mortally wounded administration. When Fukuda Yasuo reshuffled his cabinet in August 2008, a month before he resigned, Hayashi was his new defense minister.
While superficially the transition from the unpopular old guardsman Mori Yoshirō to the popular reformer Koizumi Junichirō might suggest that this kind of thing could be possible, Koizumi was a) like Mori, a member of the ascendant Seiwa-kai and b) was hardly a unifying figure and, by heightening intra-party divisions, probably contributed to its eventual defeat in 2009.
For example, if the LDP failed to win an absolute majority, perhaps due to lower turnout by Kōmeitō supporters, one could conceive of calls for 1993-style non-LDP coalition government – although Kōmeitō itself might be wary – or an LDP minority government. At this point, I’m not saying either of this outcome is especially likely – or a 2009-style change of ruling party for that matter – but these scenarios are more conceivable than before.
And that’s without considering what impact the 2024 US presidential election could have on Japan’s politics, depending on the outcome.
Funny thing, though - Shiro Tazaki and other pundits are saying Kishida is strangely in a pretty good mood. Kishida seems determined to weather the storm, wait until spring when the economy is predicted to improve a bit, let Shunto bargain for higher wages, and then say “Hey, my policies led to better pay!” For a famously bland guy, he does have a measure of chutzpah.
Difficult not to recall the celebrated observation of one of Hemingway's characters in The Sun Also Rises that he went bankrupt 'gradually, then suddenly'. Despite all those landslide election victories, it's not popularity that has been keeping the LDP in power, as we all know. The only thing keeping them there (aside from the Komeito vote) is the lack of a sufficiently attractive alternative. Perhaps the moment of (probably temporary) bankruptcy is finally arriving.