Japan After Abe: A Return to Political Indecision?

Since an embarrassing loss by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election on July 2, 2017, public support for the Abe government has been quickly decreasing. According to opinion polls released by the Yomiuri Shimbun on July 10, the approval rating for the Abe government has dropped to 36 percent, the lowest since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to power in December 2012. The disapproval rating has grown by almost 25 points in the last two months.

With waning support for the Abe government, the question that everyone has avoided is surfacing: who will lead a post-Abe Japan? Obviously, it is premature to predict who will succeed Abe. If anything, Abe, despite the declining poll numbers, is not only still eager to serve out his current term as LDP president until 2018, but also seems determined to become the first LDP president to take advantage of the extended term limit. His party recently oversaw the extension of term limits from “two terms, four years” to “three terms, nine years.” If Abe wins reelection as the LDP president in 2018 and serves a third term, that would allow him to be the sitting prime minister when Japan hosts the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. However, the loss in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election and Abe’s declining poll numbers have raised questions about the prospect of Abe staying on beyond his current term as the LDP president.

There are obvious contenders for the post, should Abe lose it in 2018. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida has been mentioned most often as the heir apparent after Abe steps down. However, some within the LDP worry that Kishida has been too loyal to Abe, supporting his foreign policy initiatives as one of the longest-serving members in the Cabinet. Now that Abe’s popularity is declining, those who hope for Kishida to succeed Abe have begun to fear that he may be too closely associated with Abe to survive politically without him.

Former LDP Secretary General Shigeru Ishiba has also been considered as one of the post-Abe contenders. Having served as the LDP’s secretary general and then as the minister in charge of revitalizing local economy, Ishiba has been increasingly critical of Abe since the July 2 loss. For instance, in a blog post on July 14, Ishiba expressed his frustration about the lack of a good “lessons learned” discussion within the LDP after the July 2 election, airing his concern that if the party failed to seriously think through why it had suffered such a big defeat in Tokyo, the LDP may yet again lose voters’ confidence.

Some speculate that even Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso may be interested in throwing his hat into a post-Abe race. Abe’s success as a “comeback kid” since returning to power after a six-year hiatus was said to have encouraged Aso about his own political future.  However, in recent days, an increasing number of observers have begun to point out that Aso, aware of his limitations, is more seriously considering an alternative path as a power broker within the LDP.

Whoever succeeds Abe, one thing is near certain: his or her governing style will be very different from Abe’s. One of the reasons Abe has been able to be an effective leader was his top-down, declaratory decision-making style. While it sometimes attracted criticism for coming across as “high-handed” or “arrogant,” his way of making his legislative and policy goals known at the outset allowed him to set the tone for the processes that followed. This was extremely effective, especially when complemented by a more collaborative approach taken by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. As competent and accomplished as they are, neither Ishiba, Kishida, nor Aso have a decision-making style similar to Abe’s. Rather, they take a more consensus-based, collaborative approach. In other words, Abe’s likely successor will be a leader who “leads from behind.”

This could present a significant challenge for Abe’s successor. The next LDP president (and likely prime minister) will inherit a Japan that faces daunting external challenges: a dangerous North Korea (potentially with advanced nuclear weapons capabilities), a not-so-friendly South Korea under current President Moon Jae-in, a confident China that is not hesitant to challenge international norms and to impose its will (including its territorial claims) on its neighbors, and a Russia that keeps stringing Japan along with its promise of negotiations to settle the Northern Islands territorial issue. Internally, Japan will be going down the steady path toward a hyper-aging society with mounting social security and other discretionary spending obligations accompanying decreasing revenue due to a shrinking labor force. Taken separately, each of these policies is complicated enough; it would be extremely difficult to find a solution that everyone agrees on. In post-Abe Japan, these external and internal problems will have a compounding effect on political leaders, making their governing job ever more challenging. In a situation like this, a consensus-based decision-making process often is too time-consuming, resulting in “too little, too late” solutions.

In recent Japanese political history, Japan underwent a period of political indecision after the reign of a long-serving strong leader. Both Prime Ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone and Junichiro Koizumi were succeeded by premiers whose tenures were much shorter. From all the indications we are seeing, post-Abe Japan seems likely to repeat this pattern, entering into a period when a series of weak political leaders governs Japan. How this may impact Japan’s ability to address mounting external and internal challenges is an open question.