Excluded from the current “troika politics,” former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga appears to have made his first move at a comeback with an attack against his successor, Fumio Kishida.

Prime Minister Kishida, whose Cabinet’s approval ratings have continued to slide, is an increasingly vulnerable target ahead of unified local elections and Lower House by-elections scheduled for April.

Although the opposition parties have failed to capitalize on Kishida’s declining popularity, he may be unable to ignore growing discord within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

And the moves against him could be led by Suga.

In the latest edition of the monthly magazine Bungeishunju, Suga blasted Kishida for remaining leader of a party faction after becoming the prime minister in October 2021.

“It sends a message that faction politics still lingers on, which makes the public more critical,” Suga said in the interview.

Suga does not belong to an LDP faction. Former Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe both left their factions after taking power.

As prime minister, Kishida has occasionally attended his faction’s weekly meetings. He has also held more than 20 meetings with Lower House member Takumi Nemoto, who serves as secretary-general of the Kishida faction.

Suga was in power for about a year before he was replaced by Kishida.

He began speaking out against the Kishida administration over the government’s plan announced last month to raise taxes totaling more than 1 trillion yen ($7.63 billion) for expanded defense spending.

Suga blasted the tax hike, while continuing to boast that he helped bolster company earnings by lowering corporate taxes under the Abe administration, where he served as chief Cabinet secretary.

The ruling party’s discussions to raise taxes for defense spending were navigated by Yoichi Miyazawa, chairman of the LDP Research Commission on the Tax System. He is a cousin of Kishida and belongs to his faction.

For Suga, Kishida appears to be letting only his inner circle handle important matters.

“Although many members of the public have shown an understanding about the need to increase defense spending, the ideas for how to come up with the funds have been shoddy,” Suga grumbled privately, according to an individual close to him. “We should have spent more time fully debating the issue.”

Apart from members of his faction, Kishida often talks with LDP Vice President Taro Aso and Toshimitsu Motegi, LDP secretary-general, before deciding on crucial matters.

Aso and Motegi head their own factions.

One of the three bigwigs has acknowledged that they run the show, calling it “troika politics.”

Left out of the equation are Suga, the Nikai faction, which shored up the Suga administration, and LDP lawmakers close to Suga who do not belong to any faction.

Suga does, in fact, head a group of lawmakers, but he said it is “completely different from a faction.”

He also remains on good terms with Toshihiro Nikai, former LDP secretary-general, and Koichi Hagiuda, the party policy chief who may take over the Abe faction, the largest in the party.

Suga and these lawmakers together could sway the direction of the LDP in the months ahead.

“Around 80 legislators could come together if necessary to form a force that Kishida cannot afford to ignore,” a close ally to Suga said.

The LDP’s next presidential race is scheduled for 2024.

A senior official with the Abe faction said Kishida should pay close attention to moves by Suga and like-minded lawmakers.

“The prime minister should not underestimate them,” the official said. “Otherwise, Kishida might find himself in trouble.”

The Kishida faction is the fourth largest in the party, after the Abe faction, Aso faction and Motegi faction.

With a limited power base, Kishida apparently felt he had no choice but to gain cooperation from other factions to ensure smooth operations for his administration. He has appointed members of his Cabinet and the party leadership by taking into account the power balance among the factions.

“Kishida’s decision to stay on as faction head shows that he does not feel reassured unless he closes the ranks of his faction by himself,” a junior lawmaker of the Kishida faction said.

And things have hardly been smooth for Kishida and many of his appointees.

Daishiro Yamagiwa, minister in charge of economic revitalization, resigned following a string of reports about his connections to the Unification Church in October. Those ties had surfaced immediately after Kishida retained him in the post in the Cabinet reshuffle in August.

Mio Sugita’s discriminatory comments against sexual and ethnic minorities were also widely known before Kishida picked her as parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications. Facing mounting public pressure, she resigned in December.

Yamagiwa is a member of the Aso faction, while Sugita belongs to the Abe faction.

(This article was compiled from reports by Shinichi Fujiwara, Takuro Chiba and Ayako Nakada.)