Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Gives up Running for the President of the Liberal Democratic Party Due to the "Political Slush Fund" Scandal

At around 11:30 on August 14 local time, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a press conference at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. He said that the Liberal Democratic Party will undergo "innovation and change" this autumn. For the various incidents that occurred previously that have reduced political trust, especially the "political slush fund" scandal, as the prime minister, he should take responsibility. Therefore, he himself will no longer run for the president of the Liberal Democratic Party.

The "political slush fund" scandal has been escalating since it was exposed in November last year. At the end of last year, multiple factions within the Liberal Democratic Party were exposed for issuing sales targets for political fundraising party vouchers to their subordinate members of parliament. If the sales exceeded the "standard", the excess funds would be returned to the members of parliament in the form of "kickbacks", and this part of the funds was not recorded in the faction's revenue and expenditure report and the member of parliament's political funds revenue and expenditure report, becoming unregulated secret funds. The Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office then intervened in the investigation. Public information shows that from 2018 to 2023, the largest faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, the "Abe Faction", was involved in secret funds of more than 600 million yen, the "Nikai Faction" more than 200 million yen, and the "Kishida Faction", which ranked fourth in terms of the number of people, was also exposed that about 30 million yen of income from 2018 to 2020 was not registered in the political funds revenue and expenditure report. On January 19 this year, affected by the scandal, Kishida announced the dissolution of the "Kishida Faction", of which he had been the chairperson for many years. Subsequently, the largest faction of the Liberal Democratic Party, the "Abe Faction" and the "Nikai Faction", also decided to dissolve on the same day.

A poll result released by Japan's Mainichi Shimbun on July 21 this year showed that 70% of the respondents did not want Fumio Kishida to be re-elected as prime minister, and 83% of the respondents believed that he had not fulfilled his responsibility as the president of the party regarding the "slush fund" scandal of the Liberal Democratic Party factions. The continuous escalation of this scandal has led to a rapid decline in the approval rate of Kishida's cabinet.

Fumio Kishida was born in July 1957. He was elected as the 27th president of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan in September 2021 and became the 100th prime minister of Japan in October of the same year. Later, he was successfully elected as the 101st prime minister of Japan. This time, his decision not to run for the president of the Liberal Democratic Party means that after the new president of the Liberal Democratic Party is elected, Kishida will resign as prime minister. Currently, former secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party Shigeru Ishiba has indicated his intention to run for election, and Digital Minister Kono Taro has also expressed his intention to run for election to the vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Aso Taro.