As Shigeru Ishiba bids for Japan’s top job, LDP conservatives may prove stumbling block

Former defence chief Shigeru Ishiba has emerged as the Japanese public’s favourite for the posts of president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and prime minister, but experts say his popularity may falter as party insiders rally around conservative alternatives, potentially fracturing the September 27 vote.

With at least 11 politicians either declaring their candidacy in the party presidential vote or expected to do so in the coming days, analysts warn that the crowded field makes it virtually impossible to identify the likely successor to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who announced last week that he would not contest the election.

They also caution that there are several candidates who are considered centrists and the most keen to reform the party in order to reverse the trend of dwindling support for politics in general, meaning that they may cancel each other out when it comes to voting and open the door for one of the less-heralded contenders.

“Right now, it is impossible to say who is going to emerge from the pack,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of politics at Tokyo’s Sophia University.

“Ishiba may be the leading contender now, but that may in part because he earned a reputation for running in leadership votes in the past, but he needs to work out which of the other candidates have similar [policy] positions and similar support bases in the party,” Nakano told This Week in Asia.

According to a poll conducted by Kyodo News over the weekend, some 25.3 per cent of the public were in favour of former party secretary general Ishiba taking over from Kishida, with former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi on 19.6 per cent and Sanae Takaichi on 10.1 per cent.

Digital reform minister Taro Kono was on 11.2 per cent while