In a bombshell, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced his resignation from the premiership in September and added that he would not contest the elections to follow. Recent allegations of financial scandals by ministers of the ruling party have resulted in strong public sentiment in Japan against the Liberal Democratic Party, presently at the helm of affairs.
In the Wednesday announcement, the Prime Minister also mentioned that he would quit as the party president. During his speech, he also affirmed the fact that some members of the ruling party, including party MPs, were corrupt. He declared, “Gaining the trust of the people is the biggest success in politics. But unfortunately, our party has lost that trust. Its members engaged in corruption. The party I worked for all these years is different from the current LDP. That is why I want to step down from the position of party president. However, I still hope that the LDP will regain the trust of the people. This can happen only if the party sincerely works for the welfare of the public.”
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For the past three years now, Kishida has been the Prime Minister who drastically strived to strengthen Japan’s military, improve relations with the United States, and build friendly ties with South Korea. But the public turned its back on the LDP as scandalous leaders and MPs of the party have more than their income allows, and reportedly, close ties with the Unification Church of Korea. Following the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the government opened an investigation into the LDP leaders’ scandals. In this regard, Prime Minister Kishida ordered the arrest of 39 MPs from his party over their involvement in financial scandals. Overall, 80 LDP leaders are implicated in financial scandals.
It is reported that Kishida angered the leaders within his own party with the decisions. Hence, he has decided not to contest in the party president elections scheduled on August 20.
