Ishiba's Resignation as Japanese Prime Minister Causes Turmoil in LDP

[Financial News] The resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is causing turmoil within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan. The LDP has decided to not only share the results of the analysis of the causes of last month's House of Councillors (Upper House) election defeat at the general assembly of lawmakers to be held on the 2nd of next month but also to initiate a procedure to confirm whether to hold an early presidential election.
 According to Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and others on the 30th, the LDP held a meeting to analyze the causes of the House of Councillors election defeat the previous day and reviewed a draft document to be reported at the general assembly of lawmakers on the 2nd of next month.
 Currently, some lawmakers demanding Ishiba's resignation argue that he should take responsibility for the election defeat. However, the LDP executive is coordinating a plan to conclude in the report that various factors acted in combination to cause the defeat.
 The LDP's Presidential Election Management Committee is expected to ask about the intention to hold an early presidential election after the general assembly of lawmakers. Local Japanese media sees the deadline as the 8th of next month.
 The confirmation targets are 342 people, including 295 LDP-affiliated members of the National Diet and 47 representatives of local governments. If more than half, 172 or more, agree, an early election can be held.
 If an early election is held, it will inevitably be interpreted as a vote of no confidence in Ishiba, whose term as president has about two years left, making his resignation unavoidable. According to the LDP's presidential election regulations, if the president cannot complete the term and steps down, an election must be held 'promptly.'
 If a new LDP president is elected, the procedure to elect the next prime minister will be conducted by convening an extraordinary session of the Diet. In Japan's parliamentary cabinet system, the representative of the majority party generally assumes the role of prime minister. However, given the current situation where both the House of Representatives (Lower House) and the House of Councillors are in a divided state, it cannot be ruled out that the new LDP president may not be elected as prime minister.

ggg@fnnews.com Kang Gugi Reporter