By KOHEI MORIOKA/ Staff Writer
August 18, 2023 at 17:38 JST
Ryu Shionoya speaks at an Aug. 17 meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. (Koichi Ueda)
The Liberal Democratic Party’s largest faction, once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, approved a new group leadership structure, but the decision is already causing disgruntlement among some senior members.
The faction with 100 members could not decide on a new chairman to replace Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022.
Instead, the faction on Aug. 17 named Ryu Shionoya as “zacho,” a post that can be translated as group head but falls short of the chairman title.
Shionoya will be assisted by six or more members of what will be called an executive board. Five of the likely members, including Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno and Koichi Hagiuda, the LDP policy chief, had said they should be allowed to manage the faction as a group.
After the faction meeting, Shionoya told reporters that no names were submitted as candidates for faction chairman.
“We still must manage the faction as best we can,” he said.
Shionoya had been acting faction co-leader with Hakubun Shimomura, a former education minister. But Shimomura is not expected to be named to the executive board.
After the Aug. 17 meeting, Shimomura expressed his displeasure to close associates.
Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister who also once headed the faction, is said to have given his consent to the new arrangement.
Shionoya will decide on the members of the executive board, but the new structure leaves open the possibility of a confrontation between the board and those close to Shimomura.
Faction members had called for a new chairman to lead negotiations for posts when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffles his Cabinet and the LDP executive lineup in September.
But instead of a chairman, the faction now has a group leadership structure. The meeting decided to keep the Abe faction name.
One faction member with ministerial experience said: “No decision has been made on the main issue and there is no sound struggle for power. The other LDP factions will laugh at us.”
LDP faction once headed by Abe nowhere close to picking a leader
July 7, 2023
With no Abe, LDP faction at risk of splitting up over church, scandals
September 20, 2022
Hagiuda appears reluctant to accept post of LDP policy chief
August 9, 2022
Jockeying already under way to pick Abe's successor
August 29, 2020
Abe casts a long shadow over politics a year after his murder
July 9, 2023
Potential candidates jockeying for position in LDP presidential race
September 5, 2021
Stories about memories of cherry blossoms solicited from readers
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series on the death of a Japanese woman that sparked a debate about criminal justice policy in the United States
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
