The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has decided to entrust veteran politician Shigeru Ishiba with the urgent task of winning back the public trust it lost due to a slush fund scandal.

Ishiba, a former LDP secretary-general who on Sept. 27 won the LDP leadership election in his fifth attempt, needs to start tackling the challenge right away as a Lower House election is expected to be called as early as autumn.

But support for Ishiba within the party is far from rock solid. He only narrowly defeated Sanae Takaichi, the economic security minister, in a runoff vote in the party’s election, with support from the LDP Diet members for the two candidates almost evenly split.

The question facing the new LDP leader is whether he can fully eradicate the legacy of corruption and money politics, regain the public’s trust, and at the same time unite the party that has long been highly factionalized.

The road to being recognized as a “reborn” LDP remains steep and rocky.

NON-MAINSTREAM BACKGROUND

In an unprecedented turn of events, a record nine candidates ran in the LDP presidential race which evolved into a three-way battle with Ishiba, Takaichi and former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi vying for the prize. The outcome was unclear until the votes were counted.

In the first round, Koizumi garnered the most votes from the LDP Diet members but finished third due to fewer-than-expected regional votes from card-carrying party members and associates. Takaichi surpassed Ishiba in both parliamentarian and regional votes, but Ishiba overtook her in the final ballot, fought between the top two vote winners.

Although he was initially seen as the front-runner, Koizumi’s campaign quickly lost momentum as his lack of experience and debating skills became apparent. Takaichi’s conservative stance, including her intention to continue visiting war-related Yasukuni Shrine even if she became prime minister, may have unnerved many of the party members facing the prospect of a national election.

Ishiba began to distance himself from the government during former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s second administration and remained a non-mainstream figure under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Even though he consistently ranked high as “prime minister material” in public opinion polls and was popular among the party’s regional organizations, Ishiba long struggled to expand his support base among LDP Diet members. This translated  into defeats in the past four presidential elections in which he ran.

The main factors behind his unpopularity within the party probably include his past moves to leave and later rejoin the LDP, his occasional candid criticisms against the prime ministers of the time, and his reluctance to make serious efforts to build party connections. This time, however, he finally lucked out, probably because he was seen as a relatively better candidate than his rivals.

Ishiba will face a key leadership test in the coming months as he tries to expand active support for him within the party and build a foundation for party reform and policy implementation.

SLUSH FUND ISSUE

The very origins of this presidential election lay in Kishida’s decision to abandon re-election and step down after he lost credibility as the party leader through his mishandling of the slush fund scandal.

Yet, none of the nine candidates demonstrated a commitment to re-investigating the unresolved details of the scandal.

Regarding the pursuit of accountability, Ishiba initially suggested that he might not endorse the candidacies of disciplined Diet members in the next election but immediately toned down his rhetoric after facing a backlash. In a Sept. 27 news conference after he was elected new president, he only reiterated that he bears a responsibility to explain the rationales for his decisions to endorse candidates.

No candidate showed a willingness, either, to take steps to demonstrate the LDP’s will to clear up all the problems in its dubious relationship with the Unification Church, now formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. Kishida cited this matter as another source of public distrust in politics.

During the presidential race, it was revealed that, just before the official announcement of the 2013 Upper House election, then-Prime Minister Abe had a meeting with the church’s leaders in his presidential suite in the LDP headquarters to confirm the religious group’s support for LDP proportional representation candidates. Despite this, no candidate proposed a re-investigation.

If none of these LDP heavyweights is willing to take tough measures against Diet members who are either implicated in the slush funds scandal or have ties with the church because each of them has a vote to elect the president, then it is unlikely that public distrust can be alleviated.

Whether the lukewarm political fund reforms can be thoroughly revisited for genuine change also depends on Ishiba’s leadership.

Ishiba should immediately embark on implementing a proposal to abolish “seisaku katsudo-hi” policy activity expenses, which the LDP currently distributes to individual party executives, as advocated by several candidates, including current Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi.

DIET DEBATE MUST COME FIRST

Ishiba will make party personnel appointments and then, following the prime ministerial nomination election at the extraordinary session of the Diet to be convened Oct. 1, announce a new Cabinet.

In the final phase of the presidential election, active factional maneuvering for parliamentary votes was prominent. Many members of the campaigns for candidates contacted party doyens like LDP Vice President Taro Aso, who still leads a faction, and former Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai.

Breaking free from traditional factional frameworks to ensure the right people are in the right places will be a litmus test for Ishiba’s commitment to faction-less party management.

In the Sept. 27 news conference, Ishiba emphasized that the three years and three months the LDP spent out of government under the Democratic Party of Japan’s administration should not be forgotten.

He recalled the principle of returning to the “original intentions” stated in the party’s platform at the time, which involved speaking the truth in a free and open-minded manner, operating the Diet fairly, and running the government in a humble manner.

“Freedom and open-mindedness,” “fairness,” and “humility” were perhaps lost when Abe used his overwhelming seat numbers in the Diet to impose tight control over the party.

Summarizing Abe’s seven years and eight months in office and correcting its evils is a role that Ishiba, who was once seen as an “internal opposition” force within the party, should take on.

He should also spearhead a move to veer sharply from Abe’s total disregard for the importance of offering explanations in the Diet, which has sadly continued since the Abe administration.

When asked during the news conference about his plans to dissolve the Lower House for a snap election, Ishiba expressed his intention to face the opposition in debate on the Diet floor and then seek the public’s judgment by holding an election.

This should involve not just delivering a policy speech and answering questions from party representatives but, at a very minimum, attending question-and-answer sessions at the Budget Committees and party leader debates. The rational process Ishiba should follow is first clarifying the distinctions between the ruling and opposition parties in these opportunities before asking for the voting public’s verdict.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 28