Factions in the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
[5] Leaders provide funds for the day-to-day operation of Diet members' offices and staff, as well as financial support during expensive election campaigns.
The leader also introduces his followers to influential bureaucrats and business people, thus helping faction members respond to their constituents' needs.
[5] As a result of the 2023–2024 Japanese slush fund scandal, attempts to dissolve the faction system began under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
It was established in 2017 by merging the following two factions: Formerly led by Yōhei Kōno, who was the Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2009.
It is more critical to Koizumi and more reformist and pro-Chinese than the Machimura faction's classical economics conservative nationalists.
As Komura retired, leadership was handed to Tadamori Ōshima before he took the role of House of Representatives Speaker in 2015.
[9] Notable members of the Shikōkai faction are Taro Kono, the 2021 LDP leadership candidate and son of Yōhei Kōno, and Akira Amari, former LDP secretary general (who currently holds a proportional block seat after losing in his own constituency in the 2021 election).
Tanaka was a roughhewn wheeler-dealer with a primary school education who had made a fortune in the construction industry; Fukuda was an elite product of the University of Tokyo Law Faculty and a career bureaucrat.
In the face of Fukuda's strong opposition, Tanaka engineered the selections of prime ministers Masayoshi Ōhira (1978–80) and Zenkō Suzuki (1980–82).
But Tanaka's faction was dealt a grave blow when one of his subordinates, Noboru Takeshita, decided to form a breakaway group.
The LDP faction system was closely fitted to the House of Representatives' medium-sized, multiple-member election districts.
For example, in the House of Representatives election of February 18, 1990, three LDP and three opposition candidates competed for five seats in a southwestern prefecture.
As a result of the 2023–2024 Japanese slush fund scandal, three major factions announced their dissolution in January 2024.
The largest faction of the LDP was led by former prime minister Shinzo Abe from 11 November 2021 until his assassination in 2022.
Possible replacements included Kosuke Hori, Fumio Kyuma, Takao Fujii, and Fukushiro Nukaga.
It is considered by many to be the most pro-Chinese and right-wing grouping among the major factions, though it is Keynesian and Right liberal in general and pro-International cooperation.
As he previously was a strong challenger against Shinzo Abe for the leadership of the LDP in 2012, the faction did not enjoy a great deal of influence in intra-party machinations.
He started an informal group of 20 independents that met regularly, before Ishiba relented and finally formed his faction at the members' behest.
Following a decrease in members after the 2021 Lower House election, the Ishiba faction downgraded itself to the less formalized "group.
