The factions at the heart of a scandal in Japan’s ruling party

WHEN JAPAN’S Diet reconvenes on January 26th a crisis inside the ruling party will top the agenda. Factions within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed the country almost continuously since its formation in 1955, routinely held fundraising events without fully recording ticket sales, thereby evading taxes. The largest faction, Seiwakai, is accused of amassing a slush fund of ¥500m ($3.5m) over the past five years and redistributing the money to some of its members. Prosecutors have indicted several LDP lawmakers and arrested one earlier this month. Since the news broke, the approval rating of Japan’s cabinet has fallen below 20% for the first time since the prime minister, Kishida Fumio, took office. In response Mr Kishida said he would disband his faction, Kochikai; three others, including Seiwakai, followed suit. How have factions shaped Japan’s ruling party—and will their breakdown endanger its grip on power?

LDP factions are essentially parties within the party. They are as old as the LDP itself, which was formed through the merger of two conservative parties united in opposition to socialism. Each party contained several groupings; these maintained distinct identities by forming institutionalised factions with independent offices and staff. Seiwakai, which was once led by Abe Shinzo, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister—who was murdered in 2022, two years after leaving office—has traditionally been known for its hawkishness on security. Kochikai is seen as more dovish. But those ideological distinctions have faded over time (Mr Kishida’s defence policies, for example, are a continuation of Abe’s); electoral reforms and generational change have gradually eroded the factions’ hold on their members, too. But they have remained an essential part of the party’s structure: before the latest scandal, nearly 80% of the LDP’s 376 lawmakers belonged to one of its six factions.

Factions are mostly about patronage, money and power. Members receive electoral and financial support, as well as the promise of plum cabinet posts, in exchange for backing their faction leader in the party’s internal race to become prime minister. Because the LDP has only lost power for two brief periods, in 1993-94 and 2009-12, factional politics have consistently played a key role in deciding Japan’s leadership. Instead of resulting from competition between parties, changes of power tend to happen through intraparty battles between factions. Each new government is formed in part by allocating cabinet jobs along factional lines.

Mr Kishida has promised that his party will “completely depart” from factional politics. The LDP has proposed banning fundraising events and factional interference in deciding cabinet positions. But similar talk about abolishing factions has been heard before. Following a high-level corruption case in 1988, factions were formally dissolved—only to be reinstated soon after. There is little incentive for the LDP to undertake deep structural change, as it faces virtually no threat at the ballot box. The Constitutional Democratic Party, the main opposition, is even less popular than the scandal-ridden incumbents, polling at just 4%. As the LDP’s next leadership race approaches in September, its factions—even if they disappear briefly—are likely to come back. ■