Why is Japanese PM Fumio Kishida stepping down?

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who announced on Wednesday that he would not stand for re-election in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) leadership vote in September, will be remembered more fondly overseas than among his domestic audience, according to political analysts.

Kishida caught the nation off-guard with his announcement, which immediately triggered jostling among half-a-dozen LDP politicians eager to assume his position.

And while Kishida is widely regarded at home as someone who did his best to handle Japan's myriad problems, he was ultimately undone by scandals within the party in which he had no hand, and economic challenges that were equally a hangover from previous administrations.

"He has been much more popular overseas than here in Japan, and it is significant that several foreign leaders have praised his leadership on the global stage," said Hiromi Murakami, a professor of political science at the Tokyo campus of Temple University.

US President Joe Biden led the applause, saying in a statement, "Put simply, thanks to Prime Minister Kishida's leadership, the future of the US-Japan alliance is stronger and brighter than ever."

An active international role

Biden added that Kishida had "transformed Japan's role in the world," adding that his "courageous leadership will be remembered on both sides of the Pacific for decades to come."

The international acclaim is a result of an active foreign policy, Murakami told DW, with Kishida announcing a sharp increase in defense spending and major changes to Japan's security policy in the Indo-Pacific to counter the growing threats posed by Russia, North Korea and, most significantly, China.

"He hosted the G-7 meeting in Hiroshima in May last year, underlining again his diplomatic credentials, and in July he became the first Japanese leader to attend a NATO summit, another important security statement," she said.

To that list of achievements can be added a firm commitment of support to Ukraine, even though the terms of Japan's constitution mean that Tokyo is unable to provide weapons to Kyiv.

Perhaps the greatest single diplomatic obstacle that Kishida overcame was the rekindling of better relations with South Korea after years of tensions based on Japan's historic role as a colonizer on the Korean peninsula.

At home, Kishida did have some policy wins, pushing the recovery from the COVID pandemic hard, raising salaries and keeping a cap on the cost of living when it threatened to soar, although he was unable to find solutions to some issues that have dogged the previous administrations, notably Japan's shrinking and rapidly aging population.

An impossible situation

Ultimately, however, it was the scandals that plagued his last couple of years in office that made running again for the leadership of the party and nation impossible.

"I feel a little sorry for Kishida because the things that have brought him down are the toxic legacies of previous LDP administrations," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo. "He was dealt an extremely bad hand as these were not problems of his own making."

Kishida took over the leadership of the party in October 2021, and it was only nine months later that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated as he campaigned in the city of Nara. The gunman has claimed that he was motivated to kill Abe due to the LDP's close links with the Unification Church.

Subsequent investigations suggested that the religious group, which originated in South Korea and is more commonly known as the Moonies, was influencing government policy. The party severed all links with the church — which is still under investigation — but public confidence in the LDP was badly damaged.

Faith in the government was further rocked in late 2023 over a series of revelations that dozens of LDP politicians had for years been building up secret slush funds to the tune of 600 million yen ($4.1 million, €3.7 million). Kishida dismissed four members of his Cabinet, and there have been a series of arrests of parliamentary aides and accountants as the full scale of the scandal continues to unfold.

No direct links to scandals

Kishida himself was not directly linked to either the Unification Church or the slush funds scandal but has borne the brunt of public criticism. His public support , which had been in the mid-30% range in earlier polls, has since collapsed, with a Jiji Press poll putting it at just 15.5% in early July.

"It has been a bad year for Kishida personally, and the party more generally," agreed Kingston. "But his announcement comes as a bit of a surprise as I thought he had been working hard to keep in the game."

"It is very possible that with a general election due before the end of October next year, the party elders nudged him because they hope that by replacing the leader that they might be able to press the reset button," Kingston told DW.

"I think it is unlikely that having a new person will be able to solve all the party's problems, but I imagine that Kishida is feeling quite under-appreciated by the party right now," he said, adding that the focus must now shift swiftly to selecting a candidate who has the best chance of convincing the voters that he, or she, has what it takes to get both the party and the country moving in the right direction once more.

Edited by: Shamil Shams