Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shuffled his Cabinet and key party posts yesterday in an apparent move to strengthen his position before a key party leadership vote next year, while appointing more women to showcase his effort for women’s advancement in his conservative party.
It is the second Cabinet shuffle since Kishida took office in October 2021 when he promised fairer distribution of economic growth, measures to tackle Japan’s declining population and a stronger national defense. Russia’s war in Ukraine, rising energy prices and Japan’s soaring defense costs have created challenges in his tenure, keeping his support ratings at low levels.
Kishida’s three-year term as Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president expires in September next year, when he would seek a second term. His faction is only the fourth largest in the LDP, so he must stay on good terms with the others to maintain his position.
Photo: Reuters
He distributed Cabinet posts to reflect the balance of power, and nearly half of the positions are shared between the two largest factions associated with former prime ministers Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso.
Kishida appointed five women to the 19-member Cabinet, part of his attempt to buoy sagging support ratings for his previous male-dominated Cabinet, which had only two women. The five females match the number in two earlier Japanese Cabinets — in 2014 and 2001. Women still hold only one-quarter of the total posts in the new Cabinet.
One of the five, Yoko Kamikawa, a former justice minister, takes the post of foreign minister to replace Yoshimasa Hayashi. Both Kamikawa and Hayashi are from Kishida’s own faction.
The LDP supports traditional family values and gender roles, and the omission of female politicians is often criticized by women’s rights groups as democracy without women.
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Minister of Finance Shunichi Suzuki, Minister for Digital Transformation Taro Kono as well as Minister of Economic Security Sanae Takaichi, were among the six who stayed.
Kishida’s Cabinet had resigned en masse in a ceremonial meeting yesterday before retained Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno announced the new lineup.
Kishida also kept his main intraparty rival Toshimitsu Motegi at the No. 2 post in the party and retained faction heavyweights like Aso in other key party posts.
Kishida is expected to compile a new economic package to deal with rising gasoline and food prices, which would be necessary to have wage increase continue and support low-income households in order to regain public support.
Two figures who lost posts in the shakeup had been touched by recent scandals.
Former agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister Tetsuro Nomura was reprimanded by Kishida and apologized after calling the treated radioactive wastewater being released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant “contaminated,” a term China uses to characterize the water as unsafe.
Magazine reports have contained allegations that former deputy chief cabinet secretary Seiji Kihara influenced a police investigation of his wife over her ex-husband’s suspicious death.
Kishida last shuffled his Cabinet a year ago after Abe’s assassination revealed ties between senior ruling party members and the Unification Church, a South Korea-based ultra-conservative sect.
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