Commentary: Japan deserves much better management than this | USAEMALL.com

CAN LDP RISE TO THE CHALLENGE?

The question now is can the LDP rise to the challenge. A Kyodo poll released Sunday, taken before the resignation was reported, showed 83 per cent believe the LDP’s very public reckoning with its defeat won’t boost voters’ trust.

Yet the party has come back before. In the early 2010s, some considered it to be a spent force before the then-unlikely figure of the late Shinzo Abe re-emerged to unite it. Is there such a visionary now?

Talk will be of the two obvious candidates, Takaichi and Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi. Takaichi is a likely frontrunner, having narrowly lost to Ishiba last year. She’d be Japan’s first female prime minister, and would certainly stem the problem of conservatives ditching the party.

She’d also get along well with Trump, and as the self-declared heir to Abenomics, the stock market would like her – though her expansive fiscal plans would likely fuel further rises in bond yields, at a time when long-term rates are at multi-decade highs.

But it’s Koizumi who has had the more impressive year. He stepped in as farm minister during the historic rise in rice prices, and quickly engineered a market reversal. Despite his inexperience, he has again played kingmaker: His meeting with Ishiba on Saturday was among the last the prime minister reportedly took before deciding to step down.

An outside bet is also an option, with eyes on the likes of the more centrist conservative Takayuki Kobayashi. But before the who will come the question of how. The LDP may choose the quick option of polling lawmakers and regional heads, which could mean a new prime minister in days. Or it might opt for a “full-spec” election in which party members also join, which would take weeks.

In either case, a new leader will then face a choice of whether to call a snap election and try to recover the majority in the lower house – or risk losing power entirely, ushering in a level of political instability unseen for decades.