The root cause of the matter is that key members of the Liberal Democratic Party have been exposed to have been withholding excess proceeds from their political donation accounts for a long time.
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Written by Tao Short Fang (columnist) edited by Ma Xiaolong Proofread by Zhao Lin.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (center) walks past Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno (right) after a press conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo, Japan, on December 13. Photo: Xinhua News Agency.
According to Xinhua News Agency, affected by the "black gold politics" scandal exposed within the Liberal Democratic Party, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made personnel adjustments to his cabinet members on the 14th, removing four cabinet members from the ** faction led by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, hoping to restore the trust of the people and avoid important decisions such as next year's budget review being affected.
This is not the first time that Kishida's cabinet has been reshuffled.
It is understood that the four cabinet members who resigned this time are Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Matsuno.
1. Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasunori Nishimura, Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Junji Suzuki, and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Miyashitoro
In addition, a number of senior vice ministers are said to have resigned, three members of the Diet have resigned from their positions within the party, and Koichi Hagiuda, who holds a key position within the LDP, also announced his resignation on the same day.
Fumio Kishida has announced that former Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will succeed Hirokazu Matsuno, and Ken Saito will replace Yasunori Nishimura as Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. Other replacements will be announced, the sources said.
Due to the long-term sluggish approval rating, many important policies have been difficult to pursue, and since taking office in October 2021, Fumio Kishida has twice made a large-scale cabinet reshuffle. The most recent was on September 13, 2023, when only six of the 19 cabinet members remained, including Hiroshi Matsuno.
1. Yasunori Nishimura.
This is believed to be a factional consideration: Fumio Kishida's Koikekai is a medium-sized faction with only 32 members of the Diet, while former Prime Minister Shinzo's Seiwa Policy Research Association (Seiwakai) has 99 senior members who hold key positions in the Cabinet, the Diet and the LDP.
In Japan** and the Liberal Democratic Party, where factional politics and culture dominate, the Seiwakai can be described as "prospering the country with one word and losing the state with one word", Hirokazu Matsuno and Yasunori Nishimura are both generals of the Seiwakai, and Fumio Kishida certainly does not dare to touch them casually.
In the cabinet reshuffled on September 13, the Seiwakai (** faction) tied for the first place with the Shi Guild (Aso faction) and occupied most of the key positions, while the Koikekai (Kishida faction) accounted for much less of the cabinet. The four cabinet members who resigned this time are all members of the Qinghe Society, which means that the Qinghe Society, the largest faction in the original cabinet, has "returned to zero".
In addition, other politicians who are rumored to have resigned are also said to be from the Seiwakai, and it was previously reported that as many as 15 Seiwakai cabinet members, vice ministers, and administrative officials will intend to resign. If that were the case, it would be an unprecedented case comparable to the "Likulut bribery case."
The root cause of this incident is that key members of the Liberal Democratic Party have been exposed to have been withholding excess income from political donation accounts for a long time.
Tickets are sold for political fundraisers in Japan, and the proceeds from tickets are legitimate political donations**. The factions and the politicians themselves who participate in the fundraising activities have certain quota for ticket fundraising, and it is not illegal to make any of the excess quotas publicly accountable and directly credited to the political cash account.
However, in recent months, it has been reported that the Qinghe Society and many of its dignitaries have not reported the excess ticket fundraising into the account as required, but have deposited it into an illegally set up account.
The Asahi Shimbun recently disclosed that Hirokazu Matsuno and Yasunori Nishimura have illegally withheld relevant funds and deposited them in "bribery" in the past 5 years, and also named many key officials. Almost all of the politicians who have been named for alleged violations are from the Qinghe Congress.
As some people admitted that "this is indeed the case" and voluntarily disclosed that "important people in the faction asked me to keep quiet, and said that it was not strange that this practice had continued for many years," the Japanese government and the opposition were in an uproar. The opposition party launched a motion of no confidence in the cabinet in Parliament.
At present, Japanese prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the Seiwakai. Investigators are expected to begin searching for evidence in the lawmaker's office as early as next week and investigating whether other LDP factions have been involved, according to reports. The "big zero" of the Kishida cabinet's big ** and faction all happened in this context.
Closing ceremony of the Diet in Tokyo, Japan, on December 13. Photo: Xinhua News Agency.
Reduced to a "lame duck cabinet"?
According to a 2023 poll by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and TV Tokyo, the approval rating of the Kishida cabinet fell to a record low of 30% (59% when he first took office in October 2021), while the disapproval rating was as high as 62%. At the same time, the LDP's support is as low as 34 percent.
The latest NHK poll released on December 11 is even more shocking - the approval rating of the Kishida cabinet has fallen to 23%, and the support of the Liberal Democratic Party has fallen below 30% for the first time since 2012, in fact, this is far from the most pessimistic polling data: an institutional poll at the end of November showed that the LDP's support rate was only 191%, the first time since December 2012 that it fell below 20%.
With the exception of the latest NHK poll, the rest of the polls are based on the public's long-standing grievances against the Kishida cabinet and the LDP's administration. For example, the growing dissatisfaction with the rising cost of living and the lack of economic boost, and the indignation that the Kishida cabinet insisted on raising taxes by 2% to increase defense spending under such circumstances, have not yet been combined with feedback on the "donation scandal".
It is foreseeable that if Fumio Kishida and the Liberal Democratic Party fail to stop the loss in time, the support rate will decline further. The last time this happened (in 2012), the LDP lost its position in power. Because of this, Fumio Kishida had to urgently cut off with the Seihe Society, and although the anxious Seihoku was obviously dissatisfied, it also seemed to be very "cooperative" and even seemed quite "active".
Analysts believe that what Fumio Kishida hopes most at this stage is to stop the decline in his personal approval rating. Reuters quoted some scholars as saying that because of the strength of the ** faction before, now the ** faction has suffered an unprecedented blow, and Fumio Kishida may have the opportunity to distance himself from the negative interest rate policy that is the core of "** economics", so as to alleviate the dissatisfaction he has caused in Japanese society.
However, analysts with different views believe that the ** faction is very important, and if the crisis is used to oppose Kishida's army, the situation will become unpredictable.
Sources within the Liberal Democratic Party pointed out that Fumio Kishida has just handed over the task of preparing the 2024 budget to Koichi Hagiuda, and if the latter insists on "going on strike" by taking advantage of the topic, it will put the Kishida cabinet in a rare New Year's Eve embarrassment in the preparation of the budget.
More importantly, with both the cabinet and the ruling party's support both sluggish, the sudden absence of the largest faction in the party is likely to make the next Kishida cabinet a "lame duck cabinet".
Some experts believe that Japan's financial policy will largely depend on the face of the Federal Reserve, which has just released a strong signal that it may exit the interest rate hike channel next year. If the United States begins to cut interest rates sharply, it will increase the upward pressure on the yen and have a negative impact on the Japanese economy, so that the Kishida cabinet and the Bank of Japan will not dare to act rashly even if they are not constrained by "** economics".
Will there be early elections.
If the alleged violation is true, the person involved in the case can be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 1 million yen. But in practice, it is very difficult to hold individuals legally responsible. Because accountants need to be provided with specific proof of the party's non-declaration, the impact of the scandal may be confined to the political arena.
Some analysts believe that although the scandal will hit the Kishida cabinet and the LDP hard, it may be too early to predict whether the "post-** or post-LDP era is coming" - although the scandal and cabinet reshuffle have seriously weakened public support for the LDP and the Kishida cabinet, it will not necessarily lead to a change in the cabinet or even the ruling party.
The "zeroing" of the ** faction in the cabinet this time may indicate the strong will of Fumio Kishida and the Liberal Democratic Party to "stay the course". Not only that, but the current opposition parties in Japan generally have low support and a lack of leaders, making it difficult to seize the opportunity to turn the tables.
Looking at the LDP, strong contenders are reluctant to take the risk of taking the blame, which may be conducive to Kishida's continued control of the party. But once the LDP's support eases, a strong challenger may emerge within the party, and Kishida will face pressure from various powerful factions.
In view of the current low approval rating, some analysts have pointed out that Japan's legislative elections, which were originally scheduled for 2025, will not be held in advance. However, the problem of "disproportionate cabinet composition and factional strength within the LDP" will continue, which could lead to an unprecedented melee in the LDP presidential election, which was originally scheduled for September 2024.