Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday announced that he will not seek re-election at the Liberal Democratic Party leadership convention in late September, taking the blame for widespread political funding scandals at the ruling party, a key factor behind sluggish voter support for the administration. Kishida, 67, will step down at the end of his three-year term next month as the approval ratings of his cabinet have drifted lower amid elevated costs for daily necessities and voter frustration over the money scandals involving many LDP factions at a time when the government plans to raise taxes to finance higher miliary spending.

To show that the LDP is changing, the most obvious first step is for me to step down, Kishida told a news conference. I will not run for the upcoming election of the party president. In the latest scandal, LDP lawmakers received cash from their factions that was raised through fund-raisers, but the money was not reported as income.

The official announcement followed recent chatter among LDP lawmakers that they could not win the next lower house election under Kishida but there is also concern that the party does not have a strong leader. Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister, told reporters on Wednesday that he would run for the party leadership election if he could get support from 20 fellow LDP politicians, the minimum requirement. Ishiba, 67, challenged the incumbent Shinzo Abe in September 2018 but Abe won his third term, and also lost to Yoshihide Suga in 2020.

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