Who is Shigeru Ishiba, Japan’s next PM? What changes will be bring to country?
Japan has found its next prime minister.
Japan’s ruling party has picked Shigeru Ishiba as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s successor.
Ishiba is a senior leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and former defence minister.
Ishiba prevailed over nine candidates including economic security minister Sanae Takaichi – who he defeated in a run-off.
“Prime Minister Kishida has made a decision to let the LDP be reborn and win back the public’s trust. We must all pull together to respond to this,” Ishiba was quoted as saying by Japan Times.
Kishida surprised many in August by announcing he would not run for prime minister again.
His decision came amid a series of scandals that have diminished the popularity of the long-ruling LDP
Japan’s Parliament, in which the LDP has a majority in both Houses, will vote in Ishiba as prime minister on 1 October.
But who is the 67-year-old Ishiba? What do we know about him? And what are his policies?
Let’s take a closer look:
Who is he?
Ishiba was born on February 4, 1957l.
Ishiba, whose politician father was at one point a Cabinet minister, grew up in the remote rural region of Tottori.
He read law at university and became a banker before entering politics, winning his first parliamentary seat with the LDP in 1986, aged 29.
Ishiba, a member of the House of representatives, represented the Tottori-1 district 12 times.
During his long career, the father of two has held several key posts including LDP secretary general, Minister in charge of Overcoming Population Decline and Vitalizing Local Economy in Japan Minister of State for the National Strategic Special Zones, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Minister of Defence.
He is thought to be a moderate in the LDP.
As per Washington Post, he is a Christian and open about his religion.
This in a country where it is the norm for politicos to keep their religion under wraps.
Ishiba says he reads three books a day and would rather do that than mingle with the ruling party colleagues who picked him as their new leader on Friday.
The 67-year-old’s successful leadership bid after four failed attempts puts the self-confessed lone wolf at the helm of a Liberal Democratic Party that has ruled Japan for most of the past seven decades.
Ishiba had vowed not to run again if he lost.
Ishiba takes over with the party in crisis, having seen its public support ebb away over the past two years with revelations of links to a church branded a cult by critics and a scandal over unrecorded donations.
A former defence minister who entered parliament in 1986 after a short banking career, Ishiba was sidelined by outgoing prime minister, Fumio Kishida, becoming instead a dissenting voice in the party.
What do we know about his policies?
He has rebelled on policies including the increased use of nuclear energy.
He supports some socially progressive policies like changing the law to allow married couples to use separate surnames, a move opposed by the party’s more conservative LDP lawmakers.
“I consider this my final battle,” Ishiba said last month when he launched his campaign at a Shinto shrine in rural Tottori prefecture, where his father was governor and where Ishiba began his political career at the height of Japan’s fast growing bubble economy.
“I will bring back a vibrant Japan where people can live with a smile.”
“We will put an end to the widespread distrust in the LDP,” he added, as per The Guardian. “Once the election is over, we will put our hearts into protecting Japan, local areas, rules and the people of Japan.”
Ishiba, who has also served as agriculture minister, promised to move some ministries and government agencies out of Tokyo to help revive Japan’s moribund regions. He has also proposed establishing an agency to oversee the construction of emergency shelters across disaster-prone Japan.
For a long time Ishiba alienated party heavyweights with his “outspoken criticism of LDP policies under Abe”, said Yu Uchiyama, a politics professor at the University of Tokyo.
That enmity, which also stems from a four-year defection to an opposition group in 1993, made it difficult for Ishiba to win the 20 nominations he needed from fellow lawmakers to qualify as a candidate in the election on Friday.
But recently he has been “vocal about the need for the LDP to turn over a new leaf when it comes to the funding scandal and other issues”, which may have worked in his favour.
He has also proposed creating a government agency in charge of disaster prevention in the earthquake-prone country that is also frequently hit by typhoons and heavy rains.
“My life’s work is security, disaster prevention, and the revitalisation of rural regions,” Ishiba said in a recent interview with the Mainichi Shimbun daily, pledging to focus on these issues as prime minister.
‘Sincerely apologise’
After a first round of voting put him through to a run-off with economic security minster Sanae Takaichi, Ishiba acknowledged that his refusal to compromise has caused issues with his colleagues.
“I have undoubtedly hurt many people’s feelings, caused unpleasant experiences, and made many suffer. I sincerely apologise for all of my shortcomings,” he said in an address to LDP lawmakers who gathered at party headquarters for the election.
As per Washington Post, Ishiba drew flak from his party members for suggesting Kishida resign after the political funding scandal.
His lack of popularity among lawmakers means that Ishiba has had to rely on the support he has nurtured among rank-and-file members over his four decades in politics.
“He appears on television media quite a lot to give very frank and honest opinions, including criticism of his own government, and that has made him popular with voters,” Jeff Hall, an expert in politics at Kanda University, told ABC News.
He has stayed in the public eye during his time away from government with media appearances, social media posts and on YouTube, where he muses on topics ranging from Japan’s falling birthrate to ramen noodles.
He also pokes fun at himself, including his sometimes-awkward manner and hobbies including plastic models of ships and military aircraft, some of which he displays on the bookshelves that line his parliamentary office in Tokyo and his love of 1970s pop idols.
But some think he has a huge challenge ahead of him.
Shiro Sakaiya, Japanese politics professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, speaking to Washington Post before the results, said “Regardless of who becomes the next leader, I don’t think the issues [with the LDP] will drastically be resolved.”
Mireya Solis, Knight Chair in Japan Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, agreed.
“I don’t believe the Japanese public feels that their standards of living are secure and stable and they have a bright future. So I think that they’re paying attention to that,” she said.
Foreign policy expert
Ishiba is a seasoned lawmaker known for his in-depth security policy knowledge.
Seen as an LDP intellectual heavyweight and expert on national security policy, he advocates for a more assertive Japan that can reduce its reliance on longtime ally, the US, for its defence.
As per Washington Post, Ishiba in his memoir wrote “Japan is still not a truly independent country” because of the “asymmetry” of its dependence on the US.
That position, analysts say, could complicate relations with Washington.
During the LDP leadership campaign, he called for Japan to lead the creation of an “Asian NATO”, an idea quickly rejected by Washington as too hasty.
“He’s come up with — some would say bold, others would say interesting — ideas about Japan’s security arrangements,” Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center in Washington, told Washington Post. “His idea about collective defence in the region has been particularly noteworthy. How he’s going to accomplish it is another question.”
In Okinawa where most of the US troops in Japan are concentrated, he said he would seek greater oversight of the bases they use. He also wants Washington to give Japan a say in how it would use nuclear weapons in Asia.
Ishiba’s push to boost the military and call for the creation of an Asian NATO could rile Beijing, but he is careful with his words concerning China.
He argues that Japan’s military should be able to take a stronger response when territorial airspace or waters are breached. Currently a warning shot is the only option, and China is “well aware” of that, he has said.
In an interview with Reuters, Ishiba also criticised the US political backlash to Nippon Steel’s US Steel, saying it unfairly cast Japan as a national security risk. Kishida has avoided making comments on the issue ahead of the US presidential election.
Ishiba has, however, softened some policy positions that have put him at odds with party colleagues, most notably saying he would keep some reactors operating in Japan, despite his past opposition to nuclear power and support for renewable energy sources.
In the run-up to Friday’s vote, Ishiba pledged to boost the economy by encouraging domestic investment in the chip and AI sectors among other policies, such as using nuclear power alongside renewables to fuel the resource-poor country.
He supports the Bank of Japan’s exit from its longstanding unorthodox monetary easing policies, championed by Abe, and has said “there is room for raising the corporate tax”.
A fiscal conservative who has promised to respect the independence of the Bank of Japan to set monetary policy, he has more recently said it is unclear whether conditions were right for a fresh hike in interest rates.
The money raised by this tax hike will help the government in its existing plan to ramp up defence spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP by 2027, according to Ishiba.
He aims to raise Japan’s low birth rate through measures including a review of the country’s notorious long working hours and expanding support for parents, and wants to fight rural depopulation by revitalising regional economies.
“Politicians don’t need to be best friends, as long as their policies and political positions match,” Ishiba said in a video posted on YouTube this week.
Ishiba has said he is uniquely qualified for the job because he has experienced many setbacks when tackling tough social issues, such as agriculture reforms.
“I have always asked myself why and how things didn’t always go well. I don’t want future generations to repeat the same mistakes,” he said in a debate on Wednesday.
Tobias Harris, the founder of the Japan Foresight political risk advisory firm, had described the race for the prime ministership to The Guardian as “a battle for the soul of the LDP pitting Takaichi, Abe’s intellectual successor on economic and foreign policy, against Ishiba, an idealistic reformer who fundamentally rejects not just Abenomics but much of his foreign policy thinking and his approach to politics.”
With inputs from agencies
