---
title: 'Japan PM Kishida to Step Down'
url: 'https://thediplomaticinsight.com/japan-pm-kishida-to-step-down/'
author: 'Farkhund Yousafzai'
date: '2024-08-14T11:10:44+05:00'
categories:
  - 'Asia'
  - 'East Asia'
  - 'World'
---

# Japan PM Kishida to Step Down

### **Tokyo, 14 August 2024 (TDI):** Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will not seek re-election as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which he says needs a “new beginning”.

### The 67-year-old LDP veteran is likely to resign as PM after the party elects a new leader next month.

### Support for Kishida, who has been PM since 2021, has dropped in the wake of a corruption scandal involving his party, rising living costs and a slumping yen.

### His approval ratings had plummeted to 15.5 percent in July – the lowest for a prime minister in more than a decade.

### In the upcoming presidential election, it’s important to show the people that the LDP will change, Kishida said at a media conference on Wednesday announcing his decision.

### A transparent and open vote and free and open debate are important. The first easy-to-understand step that indicates that the party will change is for me to step back, he added.

### Within the party, some have doubted whether Kishida can lead to a win in the next general election slated in 2025. The party has been in power almost constantly since 1955.

### Last December, four LDP cabinet ministers stepped down within a fortnight over a fundraising scandal involving the ruling party’s most powerful faction.

### Five senior vice-ministers and a parliamentary vice-minister from the same faction, formerly led by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also resigned.

### **Japan’s Prosecutors Initiate Criminal Probe**

### Japan’s prosecutors initiated a criminal probe into whether dozens of LDP lawmakers received proceeds from fundraising events that saw millions of dollars kept off official party records.

### But Kishida’s handling of the fundraising scandal drew public criticism, which rendered him more unpopular.

### The controversy also unfolded as Japanese households struggled with food prices increasing at the fastest rate in almost half a century.

### The combination of economic issues and political scandal fuelled mistrust in the ruling party, despite a divided and weak opposition.