Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba has announced his decision to step down, less than two months after his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority in the country’s upper house election.
Mr Ishiba has been in power for less than a year, but faced calls to resign from the right-wing faction of his own party after a bruising defeat in July’s vote, amid discontent from the public over the rising cost of living and economic stagnation.
The conservative LDP and its junior partner Komeito needed to win 50 seats to retain control of the upper chamber but took 47, as the coalition saw its vote eroded by an increase in support for far-right nationalist parties.
Mr Ishiba called a press conference at 6pm (local time) on Sunday in Tokyo, where he said he intended to resign as LDP president and would stay on as prime minister until a new leader is elected.
He told the press conference that he had decided “this is the right timing” to step down, having agreed a deal to alleviate US tariffs on Japanese imports. He said he had asked the LDP’s general secretary to begin organising a party leadership election immediately.
A former defence minister, Mr Ishiba came to power last October as the face of the LDP’s moderate faction. He then called a snap general election, hoping to cash in on public backing during his honeymoon period. Instead, his party lost its majority, throwing the country into the kind of political uncertainty not seen for many years.
Mr Ishiba’s decision to resign came one day before the LDP was due to meet to decide whether to hold a special leadership election – effectively a no-confidence vote in his administration.
In recent days, polls of LDP parliamentarians and regional representatives had shifted significantly against Mr Ishiba. Of those contacted by the Yomiuri newspaper on Friday, 149 said they were in favour of a leadership vote, while just 48 said they were opposed.
In truth, Mr Ishiba has struggled to project confidence in his leadership from the moment he entered office. He replaced Fumio Kishida, who was in office for three years, at a time when a scandal over political slush funds had deeply eroded trust in the ruling party.
Mr Ishiba’s name will now be added to the relatively long list of Japanese prime ministers to have enjoyed brief tenures in office. While he became leader thanks to the support of grassroots members, he only ever had “a very weak support base” among LDP MPs, says professor Yu Uchiyama, a political scientist at the University of Tokyo. “His power base was so weak that he was unable to do what he wished,” he told The Independent.
Most of Mr Ishiba’s spell in power has been dominated by the threat of US tariffs on the Japanese economy. On 7 February, Mr Ishiba became one of the first world leaders to travel to the White House to meet Donald Trump after the Republican entered office for his second term, and the two met again in April as Mr Ishiba sought to avoid steep “reciprocal” tariffs on Japanese goods.
Shortly after July’s bruising upper house election, those efforts to spearhead trade talks personally seemed to have paid off, with Mr Trump announcing a “massive” agreement involving a reduction in tariffs in exchange for $550bn of Japanese investment in the US.
Mr Ishiba described the deal as a “win-win” development but said implementing its terms would be the biggest challenge, and vowed to stay in office to see it through.
Yet weeks of uncertainty for key industries have followed. Japanese officials only discovered days after the deal was agreed that it appeared to add 15 per cent to existing tariff rates, rather than replacing them. Washington later acknowledged a mistake had been made, but that it would take another two weeks for an order correcting the matter to take effect.
In his press conference on Sunday, Mr Ishiba referenced the economic challenges that the country has been facing, saying his administration had worked to help “those who are suffering”, to strengthen the struggling yen and to bring down the soaring cost of key daily staples like rice.
“The US-Japan alliance is making progress,” he said. “I had calls and meetings with US president Donald Trump many times. We will strengthen our relationship with the United States, that is, of course, something that we need to do.” He said it was “a pity” that he had to step down now rather than continue his diplomatic efforts, but that he would pass the torch to the next leader.
He said it was a “very difficult decision” to step down, but he took responsibility for July’s election loss and admitted that he was concerned about growing internal divisions within the LDP. He warned that an erosion of trust in the country’s moderate conservative party risked seeing Japanese politics “slide towards popularism”.
There are now two frontrunners to replace Mr Ishiba. One is the more right-wing Sanae Takaichi, who came second in last year’s leadership election and would have become Japan’s first female prime minister had she won. She is likely to have the backing of the LDP’s powerful hardline faction and “might be able to bring back the voters who are now supporting more right-wing parties like Sanseito,” Professor Uchiyama notes.
The other leading candidate is Shinjiro Koizumi, a more moderate, pro-reform figure who would be better placed to attract centrist voters.
Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, says the direction the LDP turns could have significant ramifications for foreign policy in the region, where Japan and South Korea are vital strategic partners for the United States.
“Japan’s next prime minister could have unexpected interactions with Trump’s burden-sharing demands and South Korean historical sensitivities, whether the leader is more nationalistic like Takaichi or next-generation minded like Koizumi,” he said.
“The endurance of trilateral cooperation among Tokyo, Washington, and Seoul will be closely watched after Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un so visibly displayed solidarity in Beijing.”
