Japan's political scene ushered in a "major earthquake", and aftershocks continued. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida caught Taro Aso off guard, and there were various considerations, but this "scraping of bones" on Japanese politics may not be able to heal the wounds.
Recently, there have been great changes in Japan's political arena, due to the Liberal Democratic Party faction involved in the "black gold" scandal, Kishida Fumio announced the dissolution of the "Kishida faction" led by him, causing political shocks. On the same day, the other two major factions of the LDP, the "Abe faction" and the "second-order faction," also announced their dissolution one after another, causing an unprecedented fission in the factional system within the LDP.
Dissolving one's own faction by oneself is a rare "surprise victory" move in the Japanese political arena, and in particular, this move directly led to the dissolution of the three major factions of the Liberal Democratic Party almost simultaneously, which can play a positive role in breaking the factional struggle within the party, and this is also a drawback that has been difficult for Japanese political parties to solve for a long time.
However, it is reported that Fumio Kishida had some unpleasantness during his talks with Vice President Taro Aso, Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, and Political Research Chairman Kisaburo Watanami at the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party. Kishida wanted to exchange views on the way to dissolve the faction, but Taro Aso, the president of the "Aso faction", has clearly informed Kishida that the "Aso faction" will not be disbanded.
This means that there is a certain degree of split within the LDP.
The LDP met to discuss whether to dissolve the faction
The "black gold" scandal stemmed from the prosecution of eight of the three major factions of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by the Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Office, which had an unrecorded total of more than 1.7 billion yen in the report on the income and expenditure of political funds. In addition, five members of the Diet who received high kickbacks from the "Abe faction" were also filed.
Fumio Kishida told the media at his official residence that he regretted that the prosecution had damaged the trust of the people in politics, and he apologized to the public as president of the Liberal Democratic Party. The outbreak of this political funding scandal has plunged the LDP into a crisis of confidence and has become the focus of attention in Japanese politics.
Therefore, Kishida's initiative to dissolve the faction is essentially a public relations means to win back the trust of the people.
However, the opposition parties did not buy Kishida's dissolution of the faction.
Kenta Izumi, the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, criticized this as an attempt by the LDP to shift the blame to factions and evade personal responsibility. He called for the opposition parties to unite and force the LDP to step down in the next House of Representatives election. Other opposition parties have also expressed dissatisfaction with the LDP's actions, arguing that the dissolution of the faction does not address the root of the problem.
In terms of the "black gold" scandal, the dissolution of the faction has little to do with the scandal, and Kishida's approach is not only to shirk responsibility, but to shift the focus entirely. After all, it is not new that there are many factions in the party, and it is indeed a good move to transfer the political gold scandal to an issue similar to "gossip".
Taro Aso refuses to disband his own faction
Secondly, Kishida obviously also has the intention of taking this opportunity to carry out internal purging and let people from the major factions take sides. For example, the "Abe faction" apologized for the political black gold incident at the general meeting and disbanded its own faction. This is the attitude of the "Abe faction" to Kishida.
And Aso's refusal to disband his faction is clearly on the opposite side of Kishida. Taro Aso was a little caught off guard by Kishida's "knife edge inward" move, although he refused to dissolve the faction to preserve his own strength, but he pushed himself into the forefront of public opinion. The discontent generated by the political scandal will be transferred to Aso, and Kishida has escaped.
And if Aso is under too much pressure, the final result can only be resignation, which is also a disguised dissolution of the faction, and both fish and bear's paws are lost.
Kishida told the media that the dissolution of the faction was to restore the confidence of the people
In any case, this major earthquake in Japan's political arena is a "bone scraping" of Japan's factional politics. Speculation began to arise about whether this kind of factional politics would become a thing of the past.
In fact, even if Kishida really has the intention of "scraping bones to cure poison" and intends to rectify the party atmosphere through this political crisis, the effect is still limited.
This is because the old faction was only dissolved in name, and as long as the high-level personnel do not change and the personnel relationship is still there, then there is no question of whether it will be dissolved or not, but it will only be replaced by names such as "Abe faction" and "Kishida faction".
Secondly, even if the old faction is dissolved, from the moment it is dissolved, a new faction will be formed, as is the case with Taro Aso. The contradiction between him and Kishida is actually the contradiction between the two factions. Kishida's so-called "no faction", in essence, he and his supporters, are not a faction?