Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan said on Sunday that he planned to resign, plunging the country into deep political uncertainty in a turbulent time.<\/p>\n
Japan is grappling with rising right-wing populism at home and heightened unpredictability from its key ally, the United States. Mr. Ishiba, who was elected to lead the governing Liberal Democratic Party just last September, is choosing to step down to prevent a split within the party, he said at a news conference in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Several prominent members of the Liberal Democrats have called for a vote to be held on Monday on whether to hold an extraordinary leadership election, nearly two months after suffering a huge setback in parliamentary elections<\/a> in which new right-wing populist groups<\/a> gained support. The blow left the Liberal Democrats, who have led Japan for all but five of the last 70 years, a minority party in both chambers of the Diet, the country\u2019s Parliament.<\/p>\n Throughout his tenure, Mr. Ishiba has struggled to win voter support amid persistent inflation, which has remained above 2 percent for the past three years. His government has also been dogged by lingering reputational damage from a political finance scandal<\/a> and an ongoing rice shortage<\/a> that many believe has been caused by longstanding government policies that curb production.<\/p>\n The July election results exposed a deepening generational fissure altering the nation\u2019s politics. While traditional liberal opposition parties campaigned on platforms of tax cuts for households, the biggest gains were made not by them but by a new group of parties that drew younger voters with stridently nationalist messages.<\/p>\n Mr. Ishiba\u2019s resignation \u201creflects what seems to be the death throes of Japan\u2019s old politics and the old Liberal Democratic Party,\u201d said Masato Kamikubo, a professor of political science at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.<\/p>\n Mr. Ishiba\u2019s relatively centrist stance alienated the Liberal Democrats\u2019 conservative supporters, causing them to defect to right-wing populist parties like the Sanseito Party<\/a>, Mr. Kamikubo said. The Liberal Democrats also have an aging supporter base and have become \u201cdetached from the views of younger, urban voters,\u201d he said. \u201cIshiba served as a bridge between the old politics and the new politics, and that may be his ultimate legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Ishiba\u2019s government has also had to manage increasingly tense relations with the United States since President Trump\u2019s re-election last November. Japan and the United States took months to negotiate a trade deal<\/a> that left Japanese exports with a 15 percent across-the-board tariff. Even after the agreement was reached, central details remain unresolved<\/a>, including a Japanese pledge to invest $550 billion in the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n Speaking on Sunday, Mr. Ishiba said that he had ultimately decided that he should take responsibility for the past year\u2019s election results and that \u201cI feel a great sense of regret.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Ishiba said that he had been thinking of resigning since the July election, but that he was waiting for the right timing given the ongoing trade negotiations. After Mr. Trump signed an executive order last week that lowered tariffs on Japanese exports, \u201cwe saw some results,\u201d Mr. Ishiba said. But during negotiations, \u201cresigning would have been absolutely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The central question now facing the Liberal Democrats is who will succeed Mr. Ishiba, who said he would continue in his current position until a new leader was selected. Likely contenders include several politicians he narrowly defeated in last year\u2019s leadership election.<\/p>\n One is Shinjiro Koizumi, the agriculture minister and son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Mr. Koizumi, 44, who has been charged with lowering rice prices, is seen by many as a candidate willing to shake up a party widely viewed as out of touch with much of the electorate.<\/p>\n The other is Sanae Takaichi, a hard-line conservative who was endorsed by Shinzo Abe, Japan\u2019s longest-serving prime minister, who was assassinated in 2022. Ms. Takaichi has called for amending Japan\u2019s postwar Constitution to officially allow the country to possess a \u201cnational defense force.\u201d She holds socially conservative views on issues like same-sex marriage and requiring married couples to share the same surname.<\/p>\n Another option, who is less likely to veer from the status quo, is the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, according to Mr. Kamikubo, the professor at Ritsumeikan University. Mr. Hayashi is closely aligned with Mr. Ishiba \u201cand will probably work to ensure the continuation of his domestic and foreign policies,\u201d Mr. Kamikubo said.<\/p>\n Speaking on Sunday, Mr. Ishiba said that he hoped the next leader of the Liberal Democratic Party would make further progress on issues including increasing domestic rice production, solidifying relations with the United States, and encouraging firms to increase wages to help families cope with rising prices.<\/p>\n The Liberal Democrats \u201cmust be a truly national party, a conservative party that embraces tolerance and inclusivity,\u201d Mr. Ishiba said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not yet been able to dispel the public\u2019s distrust of politics,\u201d he said. \u201cI am increasingly concerned that if the Liberal Democratic Party loses public trust, Japanese politics will descend into easy populism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan said on Sunday that he planned to resign, plunging the country into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[487,26703,7788,21638,8,177,179,5197,5270,180,3184,178,3187,20299,21639,26702,2299,26704],"class_list":["post-35460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-elections","tag-hayashi","tag-international-trade-and-world-market","tag-ishiba","tag-japan","tag-japans-politics","tag-japanese-politics","tag-koizumi","tag-liberal-democratic-party-japan","tag-politics","tag-politics-and-government","tag-politics-of-japan","tag-sanae","tag-sanseito-party-japan","tag-shigeru","tag-shinjiro","tag-takaichi","tag-yoshimasa-1961"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}