Ishiba compounds his own political failures with diplomatic missteps

After assuming the office of Prime Minister on October 1, Shigeru Ishiba broke some of the promises he made during the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential elections and staged an absurdly accelerated snap election that turned into a train wreck for the party.

Once again, he broke some commitments and then organized a very abbreviated special diet session, simply to get himself re-elected so he could go to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Lima and the Group of 20 in Rio de Janeiro. This came at the expense of transferring the chairmen of eight major committees to opposition parties. Before his snap election, they were all in the hands of the LDP.

He has now been forced to postpone until next year a cybersecurity law that was seen by many at home and abroad as very crucial to Japan’s national security. This delay is due to the limited time left this year to deal with the political reform bills he promised, and to the unrest in the House of Commons Budget Committee which, for the first time in thirty years, is now chaired by the opposition. He will also need both a supplementary budget to be adopted before the end of the session on December 21, and the national budget for the 2025 financial year within the month of January.