Ishiba’s Announcement To Remain in Office: Prime Minister Should Not Prolong Turmoil by Clinging To Power

Editorial

14:00 JST, July 22, 2025

Democracy will cease to exist if the will of the people, which has repeatedly been expressed in elections, is ignored.

A leader who has lost the trust of the people will only prolong the political turmoil if they stay in office. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba should resign from his post immediately.

In the House of Councillors election, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito had set a target of winning 50 seats, the number that was needed to maintain a majority in the upper house when combined with their seats not up for election. But they failed to reach this goal, suffering a crushing defeat.

With the setback, the ruling parties have become the minority in both the House of Representatives and the upper house. The prime minister bears heavy responsibility for three consecutive defeats, including last year’s lower house election and the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election last month.

However, Ishiba said at a press conference: “The most important thing is to avoid stagnation in national politics. We must fulfill our responsibility as the largest party in the Diet,” emphasizing his intention to remain in office.

He also mentioned the need to respond to such issues as U.S. tariff measures. He has the wrong idea of what is required of him.

It is astonishing that the prime minister is using the fact that his party is the largest in the Diet as a basis for continuing in office and putting the failure to achieve the goal of 50 seats aside. This apparent stance of moving the “goalposts” for his own convenience can only be described as dishonest.

In any case, if Ishiba had gracefully stepped down after the ruling parties’ defeat in the lower house election last year, while the election is widely viewed as one to choose a ruling party, the LDP would not have been in such a dire situation today.

The prime minister’s inability to make the right decision and his repeated evasion of responsibility have undermined trust in politics as a whole and must have led to the defection of LDP supporters.

It is not only the party’s supporters who have distanced themselves from the LDP.

According to exit polls conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun, 15% of voters who do not support any particular party voted for the LDP in last year’s lower house election, but that figure dropped to 11% in the recent upper house election, a drop of four percentage points. During the administrations of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the LDP had received over 20% of such people’s votes in national elections.

If this trend continues, the LDP could find itself in gradual decline.

There are numerous domestic and international issues.

With the decrease in the number of people to support society due to the declining birth rate, reforms that involve additional burdens are unavoidable if social security systems such as pensions, medical services and nursing care are to be maintained.

Although fiscal conditions are tight, it is essential to enhance defense capabilities amid the deteriorating security environment.

It is hard to believe that the Ishiba administration has the strength to tackle such difficult issues.

If the prime minister continues to cling to power, he will likely end up fully accepting the various demands of opposition parties and flounder aimlessly. To stabilize the nation’s politics, Ishiba should step down immediately and create an environment where opposition parties can more easily join a coalition government.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 22, 2025)