Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is in trouble.
He is dealing with the lowest approval ratings since his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) returned to power in 2012. His support rates are at levels that have typically destroyed other leaders.
In one recent favorability survey of current and former prime ministers, Kishida not only ranked below Yasuo Fukuda, the most forgettable of the many LDP heads of the 2000s, but also Yoshihiko Noda — the last head of the doomed opposition Democratic Party of Japan administration, whose signature policy achievement was pushing through a widely hated consumption tax hike.
Kishida is also now facing an emerging funding scandal that has the potential to shake the ruling party to its core.
While Kishida himself is not directly implicated, the investigation by Tokyo prosecutors into concealed political funds is set to lead to multiple sackings of senior officials and might even lead to the prosecution of Cabinet members.
The prime minister should pay attention to the name atop that favorability ranking: Junichiro Koizumi, the wild-haired maverick who styled himself “Lionheart” and led the country from 2001 to 2006.
Koizumi retired from politics more than 15 years ago, but is still held in such esteem that his son Shinjiro, who took over his seat in 2009, is invariably listed among the top choices to become the country’s next leader, despite a thin resume.
Outside Japan, many are often surprised to find Koizumi still so highly regarded. His era feels like a bygone one; his global peers were then-US president George W. Bush and then-British prime minister Tony Blair, who have few pining for someone like them to return to office.
Koizumi left the scene so long ago that one op-ed at the time compared him favorably to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Now 81, he has spent his retirement mostly advocating loudly to eliminate nuclear power, an issue that the public has lost its passion for.
However, while in office, Koizumi enjoyed remarkable support thanks to his reputation as a reformer and an outsider. He presided over a strong period for the global economy pre-Lehman Brothers, drew a line under the long banking crisis, and showed a stronger Japan to the world both through his friendship with Bush and his defiance against a rising China in his controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine.
Kishida, it is fair to say, is a very different character.
However, he could use some of Koizumi’s verve right now.
After two years in power, the public is already giving up on him. Where Koizumi was lucky with the state of the global economy, Kishida has been unfortunate to preside over largely imported inflation that has crimped real wages.
However, he also has not made life easy on himself. His economic plans are confusing and poorly marketed. He has also taken ownership of larger issues that have little to do with him.
His ratings plunge began amid public dissatisfaction with the Unification Church following the killing of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe last year. Despite having next to nothing to do with the organization, Kishida came to embody the public discontent with some LDP members’ proximity to the church.
His ratings were pummeled further by anger over a national identification scheme — one introduced by the opposition and promulgated by his predecessors. Kishida took ownership and promised action, but that has not helped him in the polls — quite the opposite.
Kishida’s keenness to take on these publicly unpopular issues is well-meaning, but politically ill-advised. By comparison, Koizumi kept himself aloof from the larger LDP.
That was smart: Voters will turn out for the party, but they often do not love it. Koizumi used this public dislike and his nonconformist reputation to his advantage — threatening to destroy the ruling party if it could not be reformed, even running handpicked candidates nicknamed “Koizumi children” against opponents in his own party.
Richard Samuels, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, dubbed Koizumi the “jujitsu prime minister,” channeling public anger into political action.
Kishida should learn from that — especially as much greater discontent with money in politics is brewing.
When compared with the enormous wealth in US politics, Japanese funding scandals can often seem hilariously minor, such as that of Abe-era Japanese minister of justice Midori Matsushima, who resigned after the sin of handing out paper fans to constituents.
However, the “kickback” affair is already much bigger: Senior officials are accused of concealing political funds, with Tokyo prosecutors leading the investigation.
James Brady of advisory firm Teneo says it “could become the most wide-ranging scandal since the Recruit affair,” referring to an insider trading episode of the late 1980s that cost then-Japanese prime minister Noboru Takeshita and his entire Cabinet their jobs, and helped hand the LDP its first election loss a few years later.
In the current affair, the crosshairs have most recently landed on Hirokazu Matsuno, who as chief Cabinet secretary holds the second most-important role in government. He is reported to have not disclosed about ￥10 million (US$69,000) in donations. Matsuno hails from the faction headed by Abe before his death. Other senior figures from the faction are also believed to be involved.
True to form, despite his lack of direct involvement, Kishida has already unnecessarily inserted himself in the scandal by stepping down from his party faction — creating an air of impropriety where none seemingly exists.
If the affair continues to run, Kishida’s already disastrous polling numbers could sink to single digits.
Reports indicate that he will respond by removing not just Matsuno, but all ministers and senior officials from the Abe faction, including Japanese Minister of Trade Yasutoshi Nishimura.
However, as leader, the public might saddle Kishida with the blame nonetheless.
Time to consider taking some jujitsu lessons.
Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan, and North and South Korea. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia, and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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