By River Akira Davis, Hisako Ueno and Kiuko Notoya

TOKYO — When Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan stepped down Wednesday (14), he became the latest in a growing line of unpopular leaders to cycle through a sclerotic political system that has faced growing frustration from the public.

Kishida, 67, announced at a news conference that he would not run in the governing Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership contest in September, the winner of which will go on to become the prime minister.

The Liberal Democrats have held an iron grip on Parliament for all but four years since 1955. But decades of scandals and its inability to tackle many of Japan’s deep-rooted challenges have spurred widespread voter dissatisfaction.

Kishida, a moderate party stalwart, was not popular even when he first took office in October 2021, and in recent months his approval ratings have plummeted to new lows.

But for all that, even though polls have revealed the Japanese public’s deep discontent with the governing party, it only rarely appears at the ballot box. Low voter turnout and weak political opposition in Japan have left the Liberal Democratic Party largely insulated from the pressure of potentially losing a general election.

Kishida said Wednesday that he hoped his decision would enable the Liberal Democrats to make a big change.

“Government can only exist with the trust of the people, and I made my decision based on a strong desire to move political reform forward,” he said. “The most obvious first step to show that the Liberal Democratic Party is changing is for me to step down.”

But whether the governing party’s elite power brokers are finally ready to choose a candidate able and willing to bring any notable change — after years of resisting that pressure — is a huge question hanging over Japan in the next month.

In recent months, Kishida has seen his ratings slide in response to yet another scandal that emerged involving prominent lawmakers within the Liberal Democratic Party. His reputation has also soured over rising prices that have put pressure on households and Japan’s broader economy.

Political analysts said Kishida’s reputation suffered because he was viewed as a leader unable to offer bold solutions to problems such as Japan’s rapidly declining population, tepid economy and ballooning levels of debt. On the domestic front, Kishida has largely maintained the governing party’s long-standing economic policies, though they have failed to relieve the country’s stagnation.

Despite being in office for just less than three years, Kishida has become Japan’s eighth-longest-serving prime minister. Now, his resignation is reviving concerns within Japan that the country may return to the revolving door of prime ministers that has long characterized its political landscape.

Apart from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who served longer than any other Japanese leader, from 2012-20, Japan has seen a series of relatively short-lived prime ministers fail to implement dramatic policy changes and end up being forgotten soon after leaving office.

Government officials and security experts say the need for strong and unwavering leadership from Japan is particularly necessary today, in a moment of pronounced geopolitical uncertainty.

Japan, a crucial US ally, is facing not only an increasingly aggressive North Korea but also threats posed by China that include the country’s deepening economic and military ties with Russia and fears of a potential conflict with Taiwan.

During Kishida’s time in office, he worked closely with President Joe Biden to enhance military and economic cooperation between the two long-time allies and with South Korea, with whom Japan’s relations have long been strained. He significantly bolstered Japan’s military defence, breaking with decades-long precedent on spending restraints.

The administrations of Abe and Kishida “were relatively stable, which was good for Japan’s diplomacy,” said Ken Jimbo, a professor of international politics and security at Keio University.

While Kishida ended up not having the energy needed to improve the ruling party’s reputation in Japan, he played to his strengths as a long-time foreign minister, Jimbo said.

The challenge for the next Liberal Democratic Party leader will be to deal with political uncertainty abroad — particularly within the United States — and to promote policies domestically that will help gain the backing of the Japanese people, Jimbo said.

“It’s not certain whether Japan will have another long-lasting administration,” he added.

Earlier this year, Kishida dissolved his own faction within the Liberal Democrats over a scandal involving campaign funds. The faction was found to have failed to officially report the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of political contributions. Other ruling party factions failed to report even bigger sums.

The prime minister made various attempts to restore trust, including creating legislation to reform campaign finance rules. He also sought to dissolve the Japan branch of the fringe Unification Church after the group’s extensive ties to conservative Japanese politicians were revealed in the wake of Abe’s assassination in 2022.

Those moves did little to boost Kishida’s popularity. A poll last week by NHK, the public broadcaster, found that Kishida had an approval rating of just 25%, down from around 50% when he ascended to the role.

Kishida came into office in 2021, after a year in which voters had grown increasingly frustrated with the government’s handling of the pandemic and associated economic woes. He responded to public concerns by pledging to introduce “a new capitalism” and to encourage companies to distribute more of their profits to workers.

Kishida attempted to implement a number of policies aimed at drumming up domestic support, said Harumi Arima, an independent political analyst. Those included subsidies to families aimed at improving Japan’s low birthrate and several goals, such as doubling people’s income that ultimately proved unrealistic.

Eventually, Kishida ended up “with no cards left to play,” Arima said. Ultimately, he will be remembered as a prime minister who “showed too much restraint” by hardly straying from party lines, but he did increase Japan’s defence budget “to better prepare it to take on a world full of tensions,” Arima said.

Kishida’s low approval ratings stemmed in part from policies Japan has implemented in recent years that have stoked a burst in inflation. The country’s central bank has stuck to rock-bottom interest rates and allowed prices to rise, but the newfound inflation has weighed on households and crippled consumer spending.

As Kishida’s popularity sank to new lows in recent months, the Liberal Democratic Party has been searching for a potential successor.

One prominent contender to lead Japan’s ruling party is Taro Kono, an outspoken Georgetown University-educated nonconformist whom Kishida beat in a runoff vote in 2021. The election between Kishida and Kono, Japan’s 61-year-old digital minister, was one of the most hotly contested in years.

At the time, public sentiment had swelled for Kono. But the party ultimately chose Kishida, in a move that traded lacklustre public support for what it viewed as a safe pair of hands.

Other potential candidates to lead the Liberal Democratic Party include Toshimitsu Motegi, the party’s current secretary-general; Sanae Takaichi, a hard-line conservative who, if elected, would be the party’s first female leader; and Shigeru Ishiba, a prominent official who previously has run for the post four times.

Kishida said Wednesday that whoever the Liberal Democratic Party selected as its next leader would face “domestic and international difficulties that are truly severe.”

Heading into the upcoming election, he said, “The most important thing is to govern in a way that gains the sympathy of the people.”

-New York Times