Inevitable transition

Ishiba Announces He Is Stepping Down

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun. The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun.
You can find his blog, J Update here.
Sept 8, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

Acknowledging his responsibility for the serious defeat in the Upper House elections in July, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced his resignation on September 7. Although he sought a way to stay in office after the election, backed by public opinion that he did not have to leave, the anti-Ishiba movement in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) overwhelmed Ishiba’s continuity plan. The LDP presidential election, which is likely to name the next prime minister, will be held on October 4.

Ishiba announced his resignation at an abrupt press conference on Sunday evening. “I’ve been saying that I would not insist on my position, I would make a decision at a proper time, and I am responsible for the result of the election. Now is the proper time to open my position to a successor, because we could conclude tariff negotiations with the United States,” Ishiba said.

With the defeat in the Upper House elections on July 20, the leading coalition of the LDP and Komeito fell into minority positions in both Chambers of the Diet. Ishiba sought advice on how to continue the government from three former prime ministers, Taro Aso, Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida, three days after the election. Although Ishiba denied that the meetings covered his possible resignation, it was reported that the three former premiers did not unequivocally support Ishiba staying in office.

Achievements in tariff negotiations with the U.S. and the expansion of rice production gave the Ishiba Cabinet a bump in its approval rating in August. In the polls, people considered the LDP’s defeat to be more a function of the LDP slush fund scandal than of Ishiba’s mishandling of the election campaign. Nevertheless, anti-Ishiba groups in the LDP called for Ishiba’s resignation and an early presidential election to replace him.

The LDP decided to conduct a count on September 8 of how many lawmakers and local branches would demand an early election. Ishiba made up his mind to step down a day before this showdown. “If we proceed to the process for an early presidential election, it will cause a division of our party. That was not what I want,” Ishiba explained about his decision. The LDP cancelled the count.

A day before the announcement, Ishiba had met with Suga and the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Shinjiro Koizumi. After 30 minutes, Suga left, and Koizumi had a one-on-one meeting with Ishiba for 90 minutes. It was reported that Suga and Koizumi urged Ishiba to resign to avoid a division of the party. Now isolated, Ishiba decided to resign.

The argument of Suga and Koizumi that Ishiba would avoid disruption of the LDP by resigning did not in fact make good sense because the LDP has already been divided. Anti-Ishiba groups, notably the former Abe faction, have been frustrated with Ishiba’s leadership from the beginning. There has been a rivalry between Ishiba and former prime minister Shinzo Abe ever since Ishiba had rejected Abe’s offer to be his minister in charge of security legislation in 2014. This position oversaw the radical reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan.

Ishiba’s and Abe’s antagonism stemmed from a political war in the 1970s between Kakuei Tanaka, Ishiba’s political mentor, and Takeo Fukuda, a founder of the Seiwa Policy Group which was the official name of the former Abe faction. Looking back further, the LDP originally was the result of a merger in 1955 of the conservative Democratic Party of Japan and the relatively dovish Liberal Party. From the beginning, no leader has been found in the LDP who could reconcile the fundamental difference between those two parties: the historical revisionists pushing for an immediate constitutional amendment and the moderates advocating domestic decentralization.

As prime minister, Ishiba was unusually adept at handling competing policies. Although he could not deliver an official statement on August 15 to recognize the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Ishiba included, in his address at the memorial ceremony, the word “remorse” in reference to Japan’s invasion of neighboring countries. Abe, in contrast, refrained from expressing “remorse” in his annual addresses.

On another issue, however, campaign contributions from companies and organizations, Ishiba was unable to abolish them after protests from anti-Ishiba powers in the LDP. Ishiba regretted that he could not deliver the kind of political reform sought by the public.

After Ishiba’s resignation, the LDP decided to hold a presidential election on October 4 to elect a successor. The election will be held in “full spec version,” in which lawmakers and general party members have equivalent votes. In the full-spec version, each of 295 Diet members of LDP has one vote, and hundreds of thousands of votes by general LDP members are proportionally divided into 295 votes.

There is a speculation that the two leading contenders are Koizumi and former Minister for Economic Security Sanae Takaichi. Both have yet to announce their candidacies. Former LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, who has allied himself with Aso’s faction. A young conservative, Takayuki Kobayashi, is another possible entrant in the race. Electioneering begins on September 22.

One significant difference between the October 4 election and previous LDP presidential elections is that the winner will not necessarily be elected prime minister in the Diet. The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito do not have a majority vote in either Chamber. That is, the opposition parties can elect their own prime minister if they can agree to back a single candidate.

But the opposition parties are too fragmented to do so. One possible consensus candidate is the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Yoshihiko Noda. Yet some opposition lawmakers may vote for an LDP candidate rather than for an opposition candidate from another party. For there to be smooth negotiations with the opposition parties to name a prime minister or to pass a budget bill, the next LDP president will be required to have an ability to talk convincingly and work closely with the opposition parties.