Photo/Illutration Norimasa Nishikori, center, intends to run in the Lower House by-election in the Shimane No. 1 district on the Liberal Democratic Party ticket in April. (Masahiro Kakihana)

MATSUE--Frustration and anger are rising as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party battles against a stiff headwind in a Diet by-election in one of its traditional bastions.

At a meeting held here in early March, Norimasa Nishikori, a candidate in a Lower House by-election in the Shimane No. 1 district in April, criticized the party over the political fund scandal that has engulfed LDP factions.

“I am feeling deeply indignant,” said Nishikori, a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat who plans to run under the LDP banner.

“It is a matter of course to handle political funds in accordance with the law. As the LDP, we should deeply reflect on this issue,” he said.

But he was addressing only about 50 people in a room that could accommodate twice as many. And no one raised a hand when audience members were encouraged to ask questions.

The April 28 by-election was called following the death of Hiroyuki Hosoda, former speaker of the Lower House.

Nishikori, 54, is expected to face off against Akiko Kamei, 58, a former Lower House member of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and another candidate.

Shimane Prefecture is counted among the LDP’s impregnable strongholds.

It is the only prefecture where LDP candidates have swept all single-seat constituencies in a Lower House election since 1996, when the combination of single-seat districts and proportional representation blocs was introduced.

Hosoda, who effectively took over the Shimane No. 1 district from his father, a 10-term Lower House member, was elected to the chamber 11 times.

While many LDP members initially expected a hands-down victory, pessimism has taken over.

Some members said the association with Hosoda is now more of a liability than an asset.

In his final years, Hosoda was accused of sexually harassing reporters and criticized for his links with the Unification Church, now formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which has come under fire for unscrupulous fund-raising practices.

After he died in November, the political fund scandal increasingly centered around the LDP’s Abe faction, which Hosoda headed between 2014 and 2021.

In recent years, the LDP lost some of its clout in Shimane Prefecture following the deaths of heavyweights elected from the prefecture, such as former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, his brother Wataru Takeshita and Mikio Aoki, known as “don” of the Upper House.

The CDP is hitting the LDP where it hurts.

“We want to raise the momentum from Shimane Prefecture to break free from politics in which budgets and laws of the country are twisted by the power of money,” Akira Nagatsuma, chairman of the CDP’s Policy Research Committee, said in Matsue on March 16, when Kamei’s campaign office opened.

CDP leader Kenta Izumi and Katsuya Okada, the party’s secretary-general, have also traveled to the constituency to drum up support.

While the LDP’s support rate has declined to 22 percent, according to an Asahi Shimbun survey conducted on March 16 and 17, the CDP is trailing far behind, at 6 percent.

Still, a senior official of the Kamei campaign said changes are afoot.

“Businesses were reluctant to see us and did not even want our party vehicle parked in front of their offices out of consideration for Hosoda, but we have not been turned away at the door this time around,” the official said. “It is a tailwind that we have not received before.”

Kamei is also expected to be supported by the Japanese Communist Party.

Political analysts said three Lower House by-elections scheduled for April 28 could affect the fate of the Kishida administration.

It remains unclear whether the LDP can field its own candidates in the by-elections in the Tokyo No. 15 district and the Nagasaki No. 3 district.

“If we lose in Shimane, it means that the LDP loses all three by-elections,” said a senior official of the Nishikori campaign.

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