After planting in the quagmire of power-money relations, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gambled on his political life?

Text/Li Ruoyu

The long-term existence of the phenomenon of "factions within the party" in Japan's Liberal Democratic Party seems to have given legitimacy to factional politics, so much so that former Japanese Prime Minister Masahiro Ohira once left a political saying: "As long as three people gather, two factions will definitely be formed." However, at the beginning of 2024, the "Koikekai", a faction in the Liberal Democratic Party led by Masahiro Ohira, will be dissolved by his descendant, the current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

In the eyes of the opposition, factional politics within the LDP is nothing more than a game of profit distribution. Fumio Kishida himself is by no means an opponent of factional politics, after all, his ability to secure the position of prime minister as the chairman of the fourth largest faction in the LDP is the result of cooperation with the second largest faction, the Aso faction, and the third faction, the Motegi faction.

Compared with his predecessor, Kishida is even more attached to the identity of the leader of the faction. Previously, Shinzo Abe, who had led the largest faction in the party, was elected prime minister, but immediately nominally broke away from the faction to show political neutrality, and returned to the faction after stepping down as prime minister. Fumio Kishida, who became prime minister in October 2021, remained committed to the Koikekai until December 7, 2023, when he resigned as the ninth chairman of the Koikekai. Fumio Kishida was forced to leave his position as president of the Koikekai since October 2012 after Kobe Gakuin University professor Hiroyuki Uewaki accused the LDP of having factions that used political parties to receive cash kickbacks. This incident eventually developed into the last straw that crushed the Hongchi Society.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on January 20. Photo/Visual China

Power-money relationship

No matter how much the LDP whitewashes it, the political background of factionalism is still the most fundamental power-money relationship in political activities. Although the factions within the LDP are nominally policy discussion groups formed spontaneously by members of the party who hold the same political views, the role of the factions in actual business activities is still difficult to escape from the eternal themes of power and money.

Since its founding in 1955, the LDP has been in power for more than 60 years in the past 70 years. Therefore, for a long time, being nominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and assigned to run for parliament in a favorable constituency meant that it could become a carp that crossed the dragon gate. And the nomination within the party is precisely decided by the factional consultations.

For politicians, after becoming a member of Congress, they still hope to go one step further and join the cabinet as the head of the executive branch. Ministerial-level posts should also be "rewarded for meritorious deeds" according to the distance between the various factions and the prime minister, as well as the strength of the factions. Coordination of positions of power is more likely to occur between factions, and money is mainly distributed within factions.

"Before the soldiers and horses move, the grain and grass go first", money is the "grain and grass" consumed in the election campaign. However, the faction valve is not a banknote printing factory, and its operation usually relies on the power of the faction to amplify the voice of each member, and uses the parliamentarians as tentacles to collect funds everywhere first, and then redistribute them within the faction. The just-reported use of political party activities to collect cash kickbacks is the most common method of fund accumulation and distribution in factional politics.

Normally, LDP factions routinely issue "sales targets" to their legislators, asking them to hold events such as lectures and New Year's parties to attract supporters, and ensure that supporters make political donations in the form of "party tickets." The part of the sales target needs to be handed over to the faction system for fundraising, and the excess part can be used as a financial support provided by the faction to "cash back" to the councillors. What's more, the arrogant Abe faction will return the full amount of the money paid to the legislators, including the "sales target", to serve as election funds in the election year, truly achieving "distribution according to need". This is probably one of the important reasons why the number of members of the Abe faction has remained above 90 all year round and has become dominant in the party. In comparison, the second largest faction, the Aso faction, has between 50 and 60 members, and the smallest Moriyama faction has only 8 members.

The "procrastination" failed

The LDP's long history in power has made it both a rule-maker and a beneficiary, and the Political Funds Regulation Act, which it has led to revise, does not prohibit money management, including the sale of party tickets, and such income is considered legal as long as it is properly registered. This time, the problem is actually in the registration process. It is not difficult to register truthfully, but once the funds have been registered, they must be reported in strict accordance with financial regulations, and unregistered funds can be disposed of as they please. Obviously, the allure of the latter is enormous. To make matters worse, according to the parliamentarian's confession, the use of "cashback" as secret funds was instructed by the faction. After the cashback issue escalated from an individual issue to a collective issue related to the legitimacy of the LDP's operating mechanism, Fumio Kishida, as the president of the LDP, became the first person responsible for making a decision.

In fact, in Japanese politics, in the face of thorny political dilemmas, the common routine is to bow and apologize and wait for time to obliterate the public's memory of the incident. Hiroyuki Uewa filed the complaint in October 2023, and Fumio Kishida, who was scratching his head at his declining approval rating, was still ready to apologize according to the old routine. After the spark burned until early December, and Koikekai was also implicated, Fumio Kishida took the first step in responding positively by resigning as chairman.

However, at that time, the Japanese prosecutors had already intervened in the investigation of the incident, and the matter could no longer be lightly settled through the political operation of the Liberal Democratic Party. In the past few years, Fumio Kishida could only make a second move on January 4, announcing the establishment of a "political renewal headquarters" directly under the president of the Liberal Democratic Party, seeking to put an end to the incident. The reason why Fumio Kishida completely abandoned the "procrastination" route after entering 2024 is that on the one hand, the prosecution's intervention is a foregone conclusion, and on the other hand, it is also a change in "time".

With the current term of the House of Representatives coming to an end in the second half of the year, 2024 is destined to be an election year that will determine the ownership of the regime. It is difficult to expect the people who have the right to vote to forget this political scandal in just a few months, and Fumio Kishida, who really feels that his power is being challenged, has to act.

After the failure of the "procrastination trick", the politicians of the Liberal Democratic Party also had a life-saving trick to "throw off the pot", and the person in charge of finance and accounting in charge of the distribution of funds was a natural backbiter. The Abe faction cadres even more unanimously confessed that everything was instructed by the late faction leader Shinzo Abe. As a result of years of operation, the LDP has already formed a complete process of discharging responsibility, and the Japanese prosecutors have not obtained direct evidence of the instructions of the faction leaders, and none of the faction leaders have been prosecuted so far. The matter turned into the fact that the treasurer and the secretary of the politician took the risk of "cashing back" to the parliamentarians without self-interest. The issuance of false accounts by the faction valve is simply negligence. Such an explanation that challenges the intelligence of the people is obviously unconvincing, and the dissolution of the faction to cut it is an expedient measure of Fumio Kishida, and then the Abe faction and the Nikai faction, which were also involved in the incident, also announced their own dissolution.

Disbanding one's own faction is a political gamble. Within the party, although Fumio Kishida's dissolution of Koike will not have coercive power over other factions, it is equivalent to the prime minister's total repudiation of factional politics, which makes the faction that believes that its faction is not involved in cashback issues. At present, the Aso faction and the Motegi faction, allies of the Kishida faction, do not buy the dissolution of the Koikekai without warning, and both factions have said that they have no intention of following the prime minister's disbandment move.

Outside the Liberal Democratic Party, there are also voices of skepticism about the prime minister. One month ago, Fumio Kishida announced his resignation as chairman of the Koike Association, but how did he suddenly have the qualifications to make a decision to dissolve the Koikekai on behalf of the Koike Association today? If he had resigned only nominally as chairman at that time, who could guarantee that today's dissolution would not be a mere formality? Tracing back to the source, what the Japanese people questioned was the power-money relationship that was the political basis of the Liberal Democratic Party's factions, and the dissolution of the factions floating on the surface of the water was more like a new round of throwing the pot in a different posture in the eyes of the people. According to a poll released by Japan's Kyodo News Agency on January 21, the support of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been higher than the approval rating of the Kishida cabinet in the past, plummeted to 14.6%, a new low since Kyodo News began the survey in 1960. Prime Minister Kishida, who has unleashed a great trick, is still walking on the brink of danger.

The long-term sluggish support means that the Japanese people have long lost trust in Fumio Kishida. Fumio Kishida's every move now is bound to be examined under a magnifying glass. The outcome of this gamble on the prime minister's political life will ultimately be determined by the voters with their votes.

(The author is a teacher at Sichuan University and a special researcher at the Institute of Japanese and Korean Studies of Sichuan Normal University, National and Regional Studies Record Center of the Ministry of Education)