LDP Group to Be Formed to Support PM Takaichi

Tokyo, May 8 (Jiji Press)–Key lawmakers of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party will form a parliamentary group to support Prime Minister and LDP President Sanae Takaichi, informed sources have said. Founding members of the group, which is aimed at strengthening Takaichi’s base within the LDP ahead of its leadership election in autumn next year, include LDP Vice President Taro Aso and Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi. The group will be joined by Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Takayuki Kobayashi, head of the LDP’s Policy Research Council. Koizumi, Motegi and Kobayashi were among the five candidates in last October’s party leadership election, in which Takaichi was elected as the LDP’s first female leader. Other founding members include LDP Executive Acting Secretary-General Koichi Hagiuda, Masaji Matsuyama, chairman of LDP members in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, and Haruko Arimura, head of the LDP’s General Council. Aso will be the group’s supreme adviser. Arimura, Hagiuda and Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, who is highly trusted by Takaichi, are expected to take senior positions. The group will hold a commemorative lecture meeting on May 21 to mark its foundation, inviting U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass as a guest speaker. Takaichi will not attend, people familiar with the matter said. According to sources close to the prime minister, Kihara started the process by saying, “I want to create something similar to the group called ‘Sosei Nippon’, which supported the administration of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.” Sosei Nippon was chaired by Abe and played a role in rallying conservative lawmakers toward his return to power after the end of his short-lived first term. Initial participants in the planned group are mostly members of the LDP faction led by Aso and the former LDP faction headed by Motegi and those close to Takaichi. But Aso called for not “overemphasizing Takaichi’s influence,” paving the way for lawmakers who did not support her in last year’s LDP presidential election to join the group, including Koizumi, the sources said. One source said most of the members are taking part in the group on the understanding that they will be cooperating to help Takaichi to secure reelection in next year’s leadership race. Meanwhile, the group has not been joined by internal affairs minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, who also ran for the LDP presidency last year, former internal affairs minister Ryota Takeda, who has established his own intraparty group, and Junichi Ishii, secretary-general of the LDP in the Upper House. It is believed that Koizumi and Kobayashi joined the group partly to build relations with conservative lawmakers, in order to run for the LDP leadership in the future. An LDP lawmaker who has held a ministerial post said the group is “living together but in different worlds.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]