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by The Empire of Nagakawa. . 5 reads.

“The time is not yet ripe”: Hattori declines to run for PM [14/09/2020]

INADA- Deputy Prime Minister Reiko Hattori has declined to stand for the upcoming Republican Party election in April 2021, opting to remain as DPM in the next PM’s cabinet.

In a press conference held outside the Inada Town Hall at 8am, Hattori (55) made known her decision not to run for Prime Minister, stating that “the time is not yet ripe”.

“What the government needs now is unity”, Hattori is quoted as saying, “As things are, the time is not yet ripe. Our time has not yet come.”

“Before I run”, she added, “I must first see to it that our party is united as one.”

Though popular within her own wing of the Republican Party, the leftist faction spearheaded by Yoichi Arikawa, Hattori has faced significant difficulty reaching out to the moderate and centre-right factions of the party. In particular, she has clashed openly on multiple occasions with the leaders of the Republican Party’s militarist wing, Senior Defence Minister Takayuki Soejima, particularly over a scandal during her time as Health Minister during the Yamazaki Cabinet, where she is accused of having covered up several major lapses in the healthcare budget.

THE HEIRS- The five people most likely to succeed Yoichi Arikawa as Prime Minister
Nobuhiko Yamagata, political correspondent

With PM Yoichi Arikawa’s announcement of his intention to resign in April 2021 and his DPM Reiko Hattori’s subsequent decision not to make a bid for the premiership, the future of the Republican Party’s leadership is now less clear than ever.

As of last Friday, three Republican veterans- Senior Defence Minister Soejima, former Shadow Foreign Minister Kaburagi, and Senior Interior Minister Kamii- have declared their intention to stand for the leadership election, and an additional two are widely expected to run, bringing the total number of potential leaders to five.

  • Takayuki Soejima
    冴島　敬之

    Age: 72 (born 2 January 1948)
    Seat: Hoku-mikoto 9th District (since 1998)
    Portfolio: Senior Minister of Defence (2019 - present), Shadow Minister of Defence (2014 - 2019), Shadow Interior Minister (2009 - 2014), Chief Cabinet Secretary (2008 - 2009), Junior Minister of Defence (2008), Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Defence Ministry (2002 - 2008)
    Chance of becoming Prime Minister: 1 in 3

    With Hattori declining to run, the outspokenly nationalist Senior Defence Minister Takayuki Soejima is now the front runner in what is expected to be an unpredictable race to become the next Prime Minister. First elected to Parliament in 1998 to the Hoku-mikoto 9th District, a seat he has held ever since, winning by a comfortable margin even when the Republicans lost power to the Liberal Party in 2009, Soejima is a popular leader who enjoys generally high approval ratings among the public thanks to his reputation as a maverick, but is, much like Hattori, controversial outside of his own right-wing faction in the party. Additionally, if he is elected PM, Soejima will be, at 73, the oldest man to hold the post, in a party widely seen to be undergoing a process of leadership renewal. Whether Soejima is chosen will be seen as a mandate on whether Arikawa’s brand of reform is acceptable to the party at large.

  • Hideyoshi Kaburagi
    蕪木　秀義

    Age: 61 (born 28 March 1959)
    Seat: Ameya 1st District (since 1996)
    Portfolio: Shadow Foreign Minister (2009 - 2019), Junior Foreign Minister (2008 - 2009), Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Ministry (2000 - 2008)
    Chance of becoming Prime Minister: 1 in 4

    The moderate Shadow Foreign Minister overlooked by Arikawa when the Republican Party returned to power, Hideyoshi Kaburagi has been gaining more and more attention as a potential “unity leader” to succeed the leftist outsider prime minister who passed him over. Among the five likely successors, Kaburagi is notable in his promising to hold a snap election in April 2021, after the prime ministerial handing over, so as to secure a fresh mandate for the Republican Party’s new leadership.

  • Yukio Kamii
    上井　幸雄

    Age: 59 (born 12 December 1960)
    Seat: Yokobuchi 16th District (since 2004)
    Portfolio: Senior Minister of the Interior (2020 - present), Junior Minister of the Interior (2019 - 2020), Shadow Minister of the Interior (2016 - 2019), Shadow Minister of Finance (2009 - 2016), Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (2006 - 2008), Permanent Secretary for Finance (2002 - 2004)
    Chance of becoming Prime Minister: 1 in 4

    When Yukio Kamii was promoted from Junior to Senior Interior Minister within a year of his appointment, speculation abounded that he was earmarked for higher appointment, just as his upper-study Yoshinobu Oda was quickly promoted to become senior Republican policy chief. Barely a month later, as Arikawa announced his upcoming resignation, the famously ambitious Kamii quickly declared his intention to run for the top job in the cabinet, throwing his name in against his faction’s leader, Takayuki Soejima. While he is popular with the public, he faces an uphill challenge in distinguishing himself to the Republican Party from his own faction boss.

  • Fuyuka Tōjō
    東城　冬香

    Age: 63 (born 9 August 1957)
    Seat: Chiyori Capital District (2019 - present, 2004 - 2014)
    Portfolio: Minister of Education (2019 - present), Junior Republican Policy Chief (2018 - 2019), Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment (2008 - 2009)
    Chance of becoming Prime Minister: 1 in 12

    After winning back the seat she had lost in 2014 to Takumi Ninagawa, Fuyuka Tōjō’s experience as the youngest policy chief ever to serve in the Republican Party did not go unnoticed to Arikawa, who appointed her Minister of Education, to helm a ministry beset under the Liberal Party’s Yanagisawa Cabinet by allegations of nepotism and excess waste. Her successful reforms of the bloated education budget have put her in the public’s good books, but her relative inexperience in actual frontline politics, as compared to her back room prowess, means her shot for the premiership is significantly farther.

  • Kenshirō Watanabe
    渡辺　憲史郎

    Age: 66 (born 19 May 1954)
    Seat: Kaga 7th District (since 2014)
    Portfolio: Ambassador to the World Assembly (2006 - 2013), Attorney-general of Kaga Prefecture (2004 - 2006)
    Chance of becoming Prime Minister: <1 in 12

    A rather unusual candidate, Kenshirō Watanabe, who won a seat in 2014 when many other Republicans lost theirs to the Liberal Party of Ninagawa, is something of a niche- highly experienced in diplomacy and in legal back end work, but a virtual greenhorn in every other aspect of governance. Though he is favoured by some powerful members of the left wing cabal that propelled Yoichi Arikawa to the leadership of the Republican Party in 2018, it is unlikely that Watanabe, whose charisma and political prowess leave much to be desired, will be able to clinch the premiership, at least this time around.

Those who have expressly declined to run for Prime Minister:

  • Reiko Hattori (55), Deputy Prime Minister

  • Kiyomi Tomura (76), Chief Cabinet Secretary

  • Yūko Ekita (77), Former Senior METI

  • Yūhei Kanno (39), Junior METI

  • Yoshitsune Yamaguchi (48), Minister of Justice, Law Enforcement, and Emergency Services

  • Taisei Ishida (78), Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs

  • Tadayori Kanazawa (79), former Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs

  • Masakazu Hosoyama (69), Secretary of the Treasury

  • Yasuhiko Kitagawa (80), former Shadow Deputy Prime Minister

Read more:

We must reject the militarism of Takayuki Soejima | Ichiha Kita
PM Kanno? How the Liberal Party can return in this cycle | Kyoko Yoshimura
The case for Kaburagi | Yukiya Ōsugi
Why Soejima is the best PM for the Republican Left | Kenshi Nakayama
Soejima and Kaburagi see sharp increase in approval ratings
Schrödinger’s Arikawa | Kōsuke Abe
Cpt. Tomonori Ushio, grandson of Takehiko Ushio, appointed CO of aircraft carrier HMS Hiryū

The Empire of Nagakawa

Edited:

Raw • Report