Don’t expect too much from Japan’s Ishiba

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. It is republished with permission.

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) got a facelift last month. The election of Shigeru Ishiba, a five-time candidate, as party president gives the party a new look. But, as with all cosmetic surgery, the changes are more superficial than substantive.

Ishiba will struggle to steer the party in the direction he would like. The most cynical interpretation is that he has been elected to make the party more attractive in the general election that he has called for later this month. Once that job is done, the old guard will get to work undermining him and reasserting its dominance within the party.

Ishiba scored a come-from-behind win in the recent party election. Nine candidates, the most ever, contested the race for LDP president. (Because the LDP holds a majority in the Diet, or parliament, the party president automatically becomes prime minister.)

He came in second in the first round of voting, but because no candidate secured a majority, a runoff was held among the top two vote-getters, Ishiba and then-Economic Security Minister Takaichi Sanae. Takaichi, one of two women running for the job, is a conservative nationalist and acolyte of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who was assassinated two years ago.

While she won the most votes in the first round, there is considerable discomfort with Takaichi’s hardline positions and – to be honest – with the idea of a woman as prime minister. Ishiba prevailed in the second round as supporters of the other seven candidates backed him instead of Takaichi.

Ishiba, the perennial challenger, owes his victory to a breakdown of the LDP’s organizational structure. A large, sprawling party