Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida holds an online news conference with reporters as he continues to self-quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19. (Koichi Ueda)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is increasingly finding himself caught between a rock and a hard place over his hastily announced decision to hold a state funeral for former leader Shinzo Abe in September.

In the month or so since the date was set, public sentiment toward the event has shown marked disapproval, due in large part to revelations of the history of ties between Abe and the Unification Church, now formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

Kishida’s announcement, according to sources, was based not only on the fact that Abe was the nation’s longest-serving prime minister but also the extraordinary circumstances of his death.

The decision to hold only the second state funeral in the postwar era for a former prime minister came just six days after Abe was slain July 8 while on the campaign trail in Nara city for the Upper House election that was held July 10.

For Kishida, a state funeral seemed like a win-win option, given that it would endear him to conservative elements within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and offer him a rare chance to meet personally with the many foreign dignitaries expected to attend the ceremony at the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo.

“Compared with a month ago when the decision was made to hold the state funeral, there has been a change among the public over the event,” noted Takeshi Hara, a professor of the history of Japanese political thought at the Open University of Japan.

Hara was referring to revelations about ties between the Unification Church and the LDP that have fueled public distrust.

“The administration probably never expected such a development,” Hara added.

The issue was thrust into the public spotlight after the suspect in the slaying said he blamed the Unification Church for his miserable upbringing. He cited his mother’s massive donations and said he thought Abe had ties to the group.

The opposition camp has pressed the administration for a full accounting of the ties between LDP lawmakers and the Unification Church as well as a thorough explanation for the decision without any discussion to hold a state funeral for Abe, who was dogged by several scandals during his eight years in office.

Yet Kishida did not explain his reasoning for holding the state funeral during the three-day extraordinary Diet session that wound up earlier this month.

As a result, public support ratings for the Kishida Cabinet plunged.

This prompted Kishida to move up a Cabinet reshuffle by about a month as part of an effort to remove Cabinet ministers with ties to the Unification Church. But after the lineup was announced, revelations emerged about ties between new ministers and the church.

Support ratings continued to fall.

“There was simply just too much haste in deciding on the state funeral and Cabinet reshuffle,” said an LDP lawmaker. “Even though the public is closely monitoring the process as it unfolds, there were no signs that the government was paying any attention to the various views being expressed or made any attempt to coordinate its planned moves better.”

Despite the public disgruntlement, there are still no signs that Kishida will address the state funeral issue in the Diet.

At this point, the administration cannot backtrack on the event because the task of contacting foreign governments to confirm who will attend has already begun.

“The feeling is that support ratings are falling as the administration continues to be criticized while taking no steps to offset public sentiment,” said a government source. “There appear to be no factors that will lead to an improvement in support in the future.”

(Takashi Narazaki contributed to this article.)

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