Shigeru Ishiba was sworn in as Prime Minister of Japan on Tuesday by Parliament. The 67-year-old veteran politician, elected last Friday as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), thus formally takes the reins of the fourth economic power. He succeeds the outgoing Fumio Kishida in power, who decided in August to step down from office with popularity at rock bottom and shaken by a corruption scandal in the conservative formation that has governed the country’s destiny for decades.
Ishiba, aware that he faces the challenge of reviving the party and mending its internal fractures, already announced on Monday his intention to dissolve the House of Representatives (the lower house) and call early elections immediately: they are expected to be held on December 27. October. The movement has been criticized by the opposition bloc, who have called it “unconstitutional” and “disrespectful.”
The new president has obtained the expected support in the extraordinary session of the Diet (the Japanese Parliament), with the support of both chambers, in which the Government party has a sufficient majority thanks to the support of a minority party.
Following the en bloc resignation of Kishida’s Cabinet this Tuesday morning, Ishiba unveiled his government team in the afternoon. The new Executive has 20 ministers, is just as old as the previous one (average age above 63 years) and even more dominated by men. Women will hold only two ministerial portfolios, three less than with the outgoing Government, in a new gesture of inequality in a country where the gender gap is persistent. The figure is far behind other advanced G-7 economies.
“Going from five female members of the Cabinet, which was already extremely low, to two, is a reflection of how far Japan has to go in terms of women’s empowerment and equality,” criticized Teppei Kasai, head of the program for Asia. of Human Rights Watch, Reuters has reported. “In terms of the representation of women in the political sphere, it is a clear setback.”
The remodeling of the Executive is almost complete: only Yoshimasa Hayashi, chief secretary and spokesperson for the Government under Kishida, retains his position. At the head of finances, he has placed Katsunobu Kato, former Minister of Health and a defender of the calls Abenomics (the economic postulates of former president Shinzo Abe). With his appointment, the new premiere seems to backtrack on its fiscal austerity proposals, and continue its commitment to stimulus as a formula to finally get the country out of deflation. This will be, as always in Japan, which has one of the largest debts on the planet, one of the central points of the next electoral contest.
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The Foreign and Defense positions will fall to Takeshi Iwaya and Gen Nakatani respectively, two of his close people in the LDP, with a similar vision of Japan’s global role and responsibilities, according to the Japanese agency Kyodo. Both have already served as Defense Heads in the past.
Complex times
Ishiba assumes command at a difficult time for Japan, with citizen confidence in politics at more than low times, in addition to an economy that has not yet recovered and a hot geopolitical panorama in the region, with Tokyo in the midst of a review of its policy. military, traditionally considered pacifist. During the three years of the outgoing Kishida’s mandate, Japan decided to increase defense spending by 43 trillion yen (about 270 billion euros) over five years and raise taxes, without specifying the exact moment, to cover part of the costs. The move was justified by “increased security risks from China and Russia, and North Korea’s nuclear development.” Tokyo also decided to strengthen its weapons to have the capacity to reach enemy bases.
Kishida, who shone last year as host of the G-7, popularized the phrase: “Ukraine now could be East Asia tomorrow.” In recent years, Tokyo has experienced a rapprochement with its main ally, the United States. The new prime minister has shown his inclination in favor of strengthening the Armed Forces and a constitutional reform that makes it clear that the country has self-defense forces. But he has also defended a rebalance with Washington in matters of Security.
Ishiba, a former defense minister as well as a respected expert on the subject, has proposed the creation of a kind of Asian NATO, an idea that would surely not sit well with China, with which relations have deteriorated. With Kishida at the helm, Japan has instead managed to improve ties with some of its regional neighbors, especially South Korea, a rapprochement encouraged by the United States. The defense ministers of these three countries sealed a trilateral pact in July to solidify their ties in the face of what they consider a growing regional threat that goes from China to Russia through North Korea.
In economic matters, Kishida’s legacy is mixed. In 2023, Japan lost its status as the third largest economy in the world in favor of Germany, and the Government had to face a sharp fall in the yen, which dealt a hard blow to Japanese pockets, by raising the price of scarce resources in Japan. such as energy and raw materials. Relief measures were adopted for households, despite the fact that the State coffers were in a desperate situation. The country has not yet found a solid path of growth. It has experienced the highest rate of wage increase in three decades, although without achieving a positive spiral of prices and wages that officially breaks with the deflation that grips the country. Ishiba has hinted that he does not intend to deviate from previous policy focused on raising wages to stimulate consumption.
Kishida has assured in a farewell statement that the most important mission of his Administration has been to revitalize the economy, as reported by the Japanese public information medium NHK. And he has stressed that the Japanese economy faces a golden opportunity to break with the deflationary impulse of the last 30 years and move towards an economy oriented to growth. In the self-criticism section, he has acknowledged the setback caused by the irregular financing scandal of a faction of the PLD that has ended up undermining his mandate: “It is regrettable that a situation has arisen that has shaken public confidence in politics.” , he said.
