Issue:
July 2026
As parliament adjourns for the summer, the Prime Minister’s high public approval ratings mask growing problems within the LDP.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s resounding victory in the Feb. 8th general election saw the Liberal Democratic Party capture a two-thirds majority in the Lower House and Takaichi in firm control, with the opposition parties crushed and no serious rivals for power within her own party.
The talk in Nagata-cho was that all Takaichi had to do was follow the advice of 85-year-old deputy president Taro Aso and LDP elders and enjoy a long period of political stability. It was Aso’s backing of Takaichi – aided by veteran ally Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi – that got her elected as LDP president last year. The two men also approved a LDP-Nippon Ishin no Kai agreement that gave them the majority of parliamentary votes needed to make Takaichi Japan’s first female prime minister.
The game plan when Parliament opened in February was that Takaichi would push legislation and get the public accolades, and Motegi would handle foreign policy, an area Takaichi had little experience with or deep interest in. Aso would be the behind-the-scenes kingmaker, ensuring LDP members who might plot against Takaichi were kept in line.
But the Feb. 28th attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced Takaichi to try to calm jittery domestic oil and naphtha importers and distributors, unconvinced by her government's repeated assurances there were no supply issues.
To head off any interparty challenges to Takaichi’s leadership, Aso took the lead in organizing a new support group, unofficially dubbed the "Takaichi faction". Nearly 350 party members joined, including potential rivals. They decided that it was safer, at least for now, to not be nails that stuck up by declining an invitation to show loyalty to not only Takaichi (still riding high in friendly media polls) but also the powerful Aso, who might politically hammer them down if they refused.
Yet despite the numbers, the new group is unlikely to prove to be anything like a loyal band of followers. Especially as a simmering scandal involving Takaichi’s secretary refused to go away.
Since late April, Shukan Bunshun has been reporting allegations that last year, a senior Takaichi aide was involved in producing defamatory videos and social media posts about two powerful rivals: Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and Internal Affairs Minister Yoshihisa Hayashi.
While she was initially dismissive, detailed reports of meetings between the video creator and Takaichi’s aide kept coming. The more the reporting continued, the more contradictory the prime minister became in her replies during parliamentary questioning about the relationship between her aide who, supposedly, approved the videos and the video creator who pushed them on social media.
By mid-June, it was clear that, while the public was more concerned about pocketbook issues caused by the Iran war and what really happened with the vidoes was not entirely clear, the incident was fueling criticism within the LDP.
Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba hinted that Takaichi should be embarrassed if it turned out her aide was involved in approving the videos. The real surprise, however, came from former LDP Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama, long known as a quiet, diplomatic behind-the-scenes veteran leader.
Though referring to coordinated social media attacks on opposition figures rather than fellow LDP members, Moriyama told Shukan Bunshun these kinds of attacks on individuals over political disagreements could threaten the very principle of democracy, a comment that suggested anger in the party toward the prime minister might be more widespread than was publicly understood.
As July began, Takaichi’s main problem was that her sometimes curt denials to the smear claims weren’t helping her win over interparty rivals she’ll need to get things done in the current session of parliament, slated to end in mid-July, and, more importantly, during the upcoming autumn session.
Takaichi came into office with a reputation in Nagata-cho as more interested in reading policy papers behind closed doors than in face-to-face discussions and long meetings, or even hashing out political disagreements with her colleagues over dinner and drinks.
That approach may have worked when she was an appointed Cabinet minister with one area of responsibility. But now that Takaichi is prime minister, that governing style raises questions about whether she has the diplomatic skills to win compromises with competing interests in her own party over larger policy issues.
Before the scandal broke, Takaichi was facing skeptics in her own party, as well as the Finance Ministry and corporate community, about how she planned to pay for all of her economic plans without issuing more Japanese government bonds and driving up the national debt. She`ll need all of the support she can muster in order in the coming weeks and months to overcome the opposition and enact her plans. Doing so will require balancing competing interests in a now very enlarged LDP.
Parliament finishes in mid-July. After that, talk is growing of party leadership changes and possible Cabinet reshuffles before the autumn session. Six months after the LDP’s crushing Lower House election victory, Takaichi enjoys enviable poll ratings compared to her predecessors. But her goal of making it to the autumn 2027 LDP presidential election and running unopposed is starting to look less likely in the heat of July than it did during the snows of February.
Eric Johnston is the Senior National Correspondent for The Japan Times. Views expressed within are his own and not necessarily those of The Japan Times.
