Japan's Liberal Democratic Party's Kishida Faction officially dissolves

On September 2 local time, the "Kishida Faction", one of the six major factions of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, officially dissolved. The "Kishida Faction" submitted a record of dissolution of a political group to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on the 3rd, becoming the second faction within the Liberal Democratic Party to submit a dissolution record after the "Moriyama Faction".

The "Kishida Faction", also known as the "Hosokawa Kai", was founded by former Japanese prime minister Hayato Ikeda in 1957 and has a long history. About five Japanese prime ministers including Fumio Kishida are from this faction. Fumio Kishida has served as the chairman of the "Kishida Faction" since 2012. However, in November last year, the "tainted money" scandal of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party was exposed. The "Kishida Faction" was exposed that about 30 million yen (about 210,000 US dollars) of income was not registered in the political funds income and expenditure report during the three years from 2018 to 2020. This scandal has brought huge pressure to the "Kishida Faction" and also seriously affected the image of the Liberal Democratic Party.

To prevent the "tainted money" scandal from further lowering the cabinet's support rate, Fumio Kishida resigned as the chairman of the "Kishida Faction" in December last year and announced in January this year that the "Kishida Faction" would be dissolved. Affected by the "tainted money" scandal, in addition to the "Aso Faction", the five factions of the Liberal Democratic Party, namely the "Nikai Faction", the "Abe Faction", the "Moriyama Faction" and the "Motegi Faction", had previously all decided to dissolve, but so far only the "Moriyama Faction" and the "Kishida Faction" have submitted dissolution records.

The Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan ***yzed that as the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election approaches, the official dissolution of the "Kishida Faction" aims to draw a clear line from the "political and money" issues and show an attitude of breaking away from factions. However, Japan's opposition parties believe that the dissolution of the Liberal Democratic Party factions is superficial and is just a "pretend dissolution". In fact, the core foundation of the factions still exists. The dissolution of the "Kishida Faction" marks a major change in the internal factional pattern of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Its subsequent impact and the future development trend of the Liberal Democratic Party are highly concerned by all sectors.