Kishida Fumio, LDP President & Prime Minister of Japan
The End of the LDP Presidential Election is the Start of the Race to the General Election: 31st of October!
After Suga Yoshihide announced that he would resign from the post of Prime Minister of Japan some weeks ago, we knew we were entered into uncharted territory for Japanese politics. Following it, two events would shape Japan and its politics, its future, for months to come. Just this week, the first of them finalized, giving way to the second one, even more, consequential for the future of the country.
In the coming post, I’d like to show you the state of Japanese politics following the election of its new prime Minister, the successor of Suga, who faces a general election just days away. Exciting times for all of us that follow Japanese Politics.
Let’s go!
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LDP Presidential Election 2021
Last week, Kishida Fumio was elected the new President of the LDP「総裁」, Japan’s largest party in an election that turned out to be much more favorable to him than we could have expected when the race started. His victory in both the first round and in the runoff made clear how he became the candidate of the faction bosses while holding a respectable level of support from LDP party supporters, the rank-and-file.
His election as the new president of the LDP, to succeed Suga Yoshihide, has made him this week Prime Minister of Japan too, given the majority his party and Komeito, coalition partners, hold in the Lower House of the Diet.
Let’s see how it all came about and what changes his election brings to the party and the Japanese government:
🗳️LDP PRESIDENT RACE (2021/9/29)
On the morning of the 29th of September, the LDP met in a hotel to celebrate elections for the leadership of the party: Kishida Fumio, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Shinzo Abe, was elected in a second round.
Round 1
The first round was composed of two different votes: one from the up to 1 million LDP supports and rank-and-file members (distributed using the D’Hont method); the second counting the members of the LDP in both houses of the Diet.
In the popular vote, Vaccine Minister Kono Taro, who had been the favorite at the start of the race, won handily the vote among party supporters up and down Japan. He took 44% of the vote, perhaps slightly underperforming what we could have expected. It was undoubtedly not enough to win.
He took a majority of the prefectures, with the exception of those from where his rivals, and scattered support for Kishida Fumio, the eventual winner.
These were the results of each candidate:
With 334.046 votes (44%), the support for Kono Taro was especially concentrated in the Sea of Japan and the inland prefectures of Honshu, East of Kansai. Thanks to the endorsement of Ishiba Shigeru, he won an astonishing 82% of the vote in Tottori, where Ishiba holds a seat in the Diet.
His share of the vote in Tottori was even higher than in Kanagawa (66%), Kono’s own prefecture.
Interestingly, he was the strongest too in some of the conservative prefectures of Kyushu like Kagoshima.
Kishida Fumio, the ultimate winner, overperformed in the popular vote. With 219.338 votes and almost 29%, his results pointed to a good campaign and a certain consolidation of the anti-Kono vote behind him.
Thanks to the support of former PM Abe (Yamaguchi) and Aso Taro (Fukuoka), Kishida’s best results were in the western extreme of Chūgoku and Northern Kyushu, ancestral conservative lands.
With 84% of the vote, he conquered his own prefecture of Hiroshima. The best result of all the candidates in their own home turfs.
Takaichi Sanae, the darling of the right-wing of the party, made a good, spirited campaign. However, in the end, it was not enough to catch up with Kishida. He received 147.764 and 19.4%, approximately 10 points behind Kishida.
Takaichi’s core support is to be found in Kansai and her home prefecture of Nara where he won 71.6%
She appeared to be weakest in Tohoku, north of Tokyo.
Meanwhile, Noda Seiko, the weakest of the candidates, struggled to grow her support. She was left stuck at 7.6% and 57.927 votes.
She won only in her home prefecture of Gifu with 36.6%, not an overwhelming result.
Her over-average results were in northern Tohoku and Hokkaido, and in the prefectures around Gifu which are sociologically connected to it, like Nagano or Aichi.
Beyond the map of each candidate, I made a map comparing the result of Kishida Fumio, the runner-up, and Takaichi Sane, who in the last days of the campaign put a lot of pressure on him. Following the data, I got a pretty interesting map (below).
Although the difference was substantial between both candidates, Takaichi was ahead of Kishida in several prefectures:
Niigata (Takaichi +9.1)
Chiba (Takaichi +1)
Tokyo (Takaichi +1.4)
Aichi (Takaichi +1.7)
Nara (Takaichi +62.4)
Osaka (Takaichi +6.7)
Hyogo (Takaichi +12.8)
Tottori (Takaichi +0.3)
Eight prefectures can be divided into two different types: a) those that were very strong for Kono Taro, like Tottori, Aichi, Niigata & Kanagawa; b) those that form part of the conservative core of Kansai, including Nara (Osaka (Hyogo).
In spite of his win in the popular vote, Kono Taro’s support collapsed among his fellow Diet members. In total, Kishida won one more vote than Kono and led into the runoff!
Winning one sole vote was an impressive result for Kishida Fumio, a scenario difficult to predict beforehand. I think it can be explained by two reasons:
Kono Taro marginally underperformed polls in the rank-and-file vote. He topped in the low 40s (44%), not close to 50%. He needed a bigger margin in order to argue against denying the ‘winner of the popular vote’ the victory in a second round. In the end, he didn’t even win the first round.
His support among fellow Diet members was lower than expected, getting surpassed even by Takaichi Sanae. A humiliating development that sank his chances.
One has to wonder if the creation of that alliance with both Ishiba Shigeru and Koizumi Shinjiro (popular among the public) actually hurt his chances; they have plenty of enemies among the top faction bosses and party leaders.
In the end, the final combined vote of the first round was:
Kishida Fumio 256: 146 Diet + 110 party supporters
Kono Taro 255: 86 Diet + 169 party supporters
Takaichi Sanae 188: 114 Diet + 74 party supporters
Noda Seiko 36: 34 Diet + 29 party supporters
Kishida Fumio and Kono Taro advanced to the runoff.
Round 2: runoff
Before the second round started, the result was almost already predetermined. On the morning of the election, the camps of Kishida Fumio and Takaichi Sanae announced an agreement to prevent a win of Kono Taro in the second round. And that’s exactly what happened.
Kishida won the final round with 257 votes over 170 for Kono Taro:
Kishida took 249 votes from MPs against Kono’s 131
He lost the vote by prefecture, which was predetermined by which candidate won each prefecture in the first round.
In the end, it was a good, anticlimactic win by Kishida, which hides an interesting point: Kono won around two dozen of votes from MPs in comparison to the first round.
KISHIDA, NEW PRESIDENT OF THE LDP OF JAPAN
Kishida Fumio, from Hiroshima, succeedsSuga Yoshihide, from Kanagawa.
After his victory, Kishida wasted no time in naming the top executive posts of the party, in which the influence of Shinzo Abe is felt in the background, analysts say. Let’s see the names
Starting from the left of the photo:
Executive Acting Secretary-General Kajima Hiroshi「幹事長代行」
Chair of Public Relations Kono Taro「広報本部長」
Chair of the Election Strategy Committee Endo Toshiaki「選挙対策委員長」
Chair of the General Council Fukuda Tatsuo「総務会長」
President Kishida Fumio「自民党総裁」
Secretary-General Amari Akira「幹事長」
Chair of the Policy Research Council Takaichi Sanae「政務調査会長」
Sekiguchi Masakazu Chair of the LDP members of the House of Councillors「参議院議員会長」
LDP Secretary-General in the House of Councillors Seko Hiroshige「参議院幹事長」
Chair of Party Organization & Campaign Headquarters Obuchi Yuko「組織運動本部長」
Not in the photo, but also included are:
LDP Vicepresident Aso Taro「副総裁」
Chair of the Diet Committee Takagi Tsuyoshi1「国対委員長」
Acting Secretary General Tanaka Kazunori「幹事長代理」
When watching the distribution of the new leadership by faction, it’s pretty evident the disappearance of the top posts of the Nikai Faction. Now that Nikai Toshihiro is on his way out as Secretary-General of the party, it looks like his faction will go back to ostracism, given the emergence of members of the Hosoda (Abe) and Aso Faction (Aso), both retaining a lot of power under the new Prime Minister.
The alliance of the “Triple-A” will be in full force in the cabinet and the top posts of the party:
Shinzo Abe on the background;
Aso Taro out of the government and the Ministry of Finance (a post he had held since 2012), but as Vicepresident of the LDP
Amari Akira, asthe new Secretary-General.
Some already see the Kishida Cabinet as an Abe 3.0 government…
In the meantime, Kono Taro was named Head of the Public Relations Bureau. LOL, It sounds like a demotion to me. The man had been Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs before. Ah, and Koizumi Shinjiro won’t be back in the government. Their alliance with Ishiba Shigeru is killing them, despite being the most popular politicians in the party and the country.
🗳️PRIME MINISTER DIET ELECTION (2021/10/4)
On Monday of this week, the 4th of October, Kishida Fumio was officially elected as the 100th Prime Minister of Japan, after both houses of the Diet, controlled by his party, the LDP, and Komeito, gave him their approval.
On the same day, the new Prime Minister announced that the general election would take place, finally, on the 31st of October. GET READY PEOPLE!
First, the Lower House of the Diet approved Kishida Fumio as PM, with the following results:
Kishida Fumio (LDP) -- 311 votes ✅
Edano Yukio (CDP) -- 124 votes
Katayama Toranosuke (Ishin) -- 11 votes
Tamaki Yuichiro (DPFP) -- 11 votes
Takaichi Sanae (LDP) -- 1 vote2
A few minutes later, the House of Councillors rubber-stamped the results, making it official:
Kishida Fumio (LDP) -- 141 votes
Edano Yukio (CDP) -- 65 votes
Katayama Toranosuke (Ishin) -- 15 votes
Tamaki Yuichiro (DPFP) -- 15 votes
Kada Yukiko (Opp) -- 2 votes
Watanabe Yoshimi (Indp) -- 2 votes
Ito Takae (DPFP) -- 1 vote
Kishida Fumio, 100th Prime Minister in Japan’s history.
Afterwards, the government was announced, confirming the reports the Japanese media had been sending for some days already. These will be the new Cabinet「内閣」following the numbers:
20 members: 17 men, 3 women
4 members from the Hosoda & 4 from Takeshita Faction. 3 from Kishida & Aso. 2 from Nikai Faction. 3 don’t belong to any faction. None from the Ishiba or Ishihara groups.
Oldest member: Inoyu Satoshi (77), a 3-term member of the HoC from Kyoto as Chair of the National Public Safety Commission.
Youngest member (female ): Makishima Karen (44), 3-term member of the HoR from Kanagawa 17区 as Minister of Digitalization.
Two members of the Suga Cabinet remain: Kishi Nobuo as Defense Minister & Motegi Toshimitsu as Minister of Foreign Affairs
You can check the full roster below:
It’s interesting, however, to see plenty of “weak LDP incumbents” becoming members of the cabinet. Some of the new members of the cabinet are vulnerable in their districts. Therefore, it wouldn’t be crazy to see some of them lose their seats in the coming election. It’s a move by PM Kishida that risks humiliation if it came to happen in three weeks. To name a few of them:
Kobayashi Takayuki, Minister of Economic Security: Chiba 2区 ( reelected with 48% of the vote in 2017)
Horiuchi Noriko, Minister of Vaccination: Yamanashi 2区 (40% in 2017)
Hagiuda Koichi, Minister of Economy, Trade & Industry: Tokyo 24区 (49% in 2017)
Wakamiya Kenji, Minister of the World Fair: Tokyo 5区 (41% in 2017)
Goto Shigeyuki, Minister of Health: Nagano 4区 (45% in 2017)
All of them will have competitive races in the coming election. And the Opposition wouldn’t love anything more than toppling an incumbent minister of election night. These appointments maybe even work as an accelerator of the unification process the Opposition still has to carry out. We’ll see.
The question about the lack of women in the Cabinet remains with Kishida Fumio, despite the air of “renewal and moderation” some wanted to give him credit for. You can do better, Japan (or the LDP).
In the meantime, these guys now have a lot of free time to go for some pancake indeed…😂
With the government formed and the Prime Minister in the Kantei, the Japanese political world moves its sights now to the 31st of October, when the 49th Election for the Lower House will take place. With its announcement from the 19th of this month, it might be the shortest election campaign in the country’s history:
Thie schedule gives the Opposition a short time to finish up coordinating candidates around the country. Arguably, there must be still between 20-40 districts where the Opposition parties need to work out a solution that pleases all sides. The presentation of unified candidates in Single-Member Dsitrcits around Japan, alone, doesn’t mean instant success but it’s a requirement to compete against the LDP on equal footing. A lot of progress has been made in the last months, but more still needs to be done, especially in urban prefectures like Tokyo, Saitama or Aichi, where the Opposition has the chance of racking up seats.
The LDP and Kishida are betting on:
a) A possible boost in the polls, derived from the usual honeymoon period. We have to actually see how higher can they get; they’ve already got a boost after former PM Suga announced his resignation3.
b) The lack of time for the Opposition parties to fully organize in the dozens of districts where competing candidates still remain.
c) Avoiding a new wave, perhaps, a rebound for cases now that the restrictions are coming down thanks to the fantastic pace of vaccination in Japan.
In the meantime, the main parties are already leaking their expectations for the coming election.
Buckle up. It will be wild!
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Here you can see who might be behind each vote, which is secret though.
The first polls released yesterday do not point to an impressive boost, actually. Throw them to the average.
