A Party Threat to Shinzo Abe?

A series of scandals and missteps—plus a shocking defeat in local Tokyo elections—is creating some uncertainty over the political future of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. And according to new polling, his rival Shigeru Ishiba could be the one to pick up the pieces. Japan Times:

Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba overtook scandal-hit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the best person to lead Japan, an opinion poll showed Tuesday.

Ishiba was seen as the most appropriate choice for prime minister by 20.4 percent of respondents to the poll conducted by the Sankei newspaper and FNN TV network, while 19.7 percent picked Abe. […]

With support for Abe’s Cabinet nose-diving amid a series of gaffes and scandals, Ishiba has emerged in recent weeks as one of the strongest critics of the prime minister within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. He told Fuji TV after the LDP suffered a heavy defeat in a Tokyo election this month that the party was in crisis, and he has questioned Abe’s haste in pushing to revise the 70-year-old pacifist Constitution.

Ishiba has lately been hinting that he will challenge Abe for the LDP presidency next September. If he does, it won’t be the first time: Ishiba narrowly lost to Abe in a leadership battle before the LDP regained its majority in the Diet in 2012. Like Abe, Ishiba is a conservative nationalist who looks to strengthen Japan as a military power in the face of rising threats from China and North Korea. And he has an impressive resume, having served as Defense Minister from 2007 to 2008, and subsequently as the Secretary General of the LDP and as minister for regional economies under Abe.

All this could make Ishiba a formidable challenger to the Prime Minister, who is currently feeling the heat from the Kake Gakuen scandal that has embroiled him in charges of cronyism. But Abe is a canny politician, and it would be a mistake to count him out just yet. Moreover, the fact that his chief LDP rival shares Abe’s nationalist outlook suggests that the foreign policy choices Abe has made have deep roots in Japanese politics. Barring a collapse in support for the LDP overall, those choices are likely to last, no matter who takes the party leadership next year.

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