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Pool photo / The Yomiuri Shimbun Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends a meeting in Ina, Nagano Prefecture, on Saturday.
By Takahito Higuchi, Kota Ifuku and Toru Inoue / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
21:00 JST, March 16, 2025
The distribution of gift certificates by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has shaken the prime minister’s political support base in regional areas. The revelations come as the Liberal Democratic Party, of which Ishiba is president, was already trying to recover from the damage caused by a politics and money scandal involving LDP factions.
There has been strong criticism from people involved with local LDP organizations, which are gearing up for the House of Councillors election this summer.
‘With all my heart and soul’
“There is nothing I can do but try my best [to explain about the issue] with all my heart and soul. Whether it is legally acceptable is a completely different matter from whether it is emotionally acceptable,” the prime minister told reporters Saturday, reading from prepared remarks. He spoke with the media after meeting with local businesspeople and others in Miyada, Nagano Prefecture.
Ishiba’s visit to Nagano Prefecture on Saturday was supposed to represent the full start of his tour of regional areas with an eye on the upper house election, following his visit to Fukushima Prefecture on Tuesday. He had planned to listen to local people and appeal to voters with his signature policy of regional revitalization, in an attempt to boost the foundations of his administration.
However, Ishiba’s own issue ended up derailing his initial intentions for the tour.
Ishiba has demonstrated his strength in regional areas, for example receiving the most party member and supporter votes in 24 prefectures in the LDP presidential election last year. In 2012, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appointed Ishiba as party secretary general because Ishiba had also secured the most local votes in the LDP presidential poll before that.
Since then, Ishiba has worked hard on regional affairs, including serving as regional revitalization minister.
Reputation damaged
However, the popularity he built up in regional areas has begun to collapse as a result of his latest issue.
On Saturday, the party’s Osaka prefectural chapter held a meeting of its senior officials. At a press conference following the meeting, chapter Secretary General Kazuhiko Maeda stressed that “¥100,000 is a very large amount of money from the common sense of the general public. We must operate from the viewpoint of whether we can gain the understanding of the public.”
Buffeted by the political funds scandal involving its factions, the LDP lost all the single-seat constituency races in Osaka Prefecture in the House of Representatives election last year.
This fresh scandal comes as the Osaka chapter was hoping to make up for its losses by winning in this year’s upper house election. “I think it [Ishiba’s gift certificate issue] will have a negative impact [on the chapter] in the election,” said Matsuo Shikata, the chapter’s general affairs chief, who also attended the meeting.
Nobuaki Kojima, deputy chairman of the LDP Saitama prefectural chapter, said: “With the problems of politics and money and the high cost of living being talked about, [Ishiba] is just too insensitive.”
The LDP lost momentum in the lower house election last year due to its provision of ¥20 million each to local party branches headed by candidates who had no official party endorsement.
A secretary general of an LDP prefectural chapter in eastern Japan called for the prime minister to resign.
“The prime minister is responsible for the crushing defeat in the previous lower house election. He should step down as prime minister because the party cannot compete in the upcoming upper house election [under his leadership],” the person said.
Key to his fate
LDP upper house members who are up for re-election in the summer also faced criticism from voters on the first weekend after the scandal broke.
At a meeting for a sports event in Ogi, Saga Prefecture, on Saturday, many participants made harsh comments to LDP upper house member Yuhei Yamashita. “I can’t understand what the prime minister was saying,” one said. A woman who said she voted for Ishiba in last year’s party presidential election said angrily: “I’m so disappointed. It’s no good if the prime minister is doing things like that.”
Yamashita questioned the prime minister during a session at the upper house Budget Committee on Friday. “I think you’ve lost touch with the feelings of the people,” Yamashita said.
At a meeting in Imari in the prefecture, Yamashita said: “I’ve been scolded. The situation for the upper house election is really tough.”
So far, there have been few calls for the prime minister to step down from LDP upper house members.
“Whether calls for a new face [for the election] grow among senior LDP members of the upper house will be the key to the prime minister’s fate,” a veteran LDP lawmaker said.
