Abe plans to reshuffle Cabinet, party leadership

June 18, 2017

Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to reshuffle his cabinet and the executive posts of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party after taking a hit from a scandal involving the Kake Educational Institution, informed sources said Saturday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, who doubles as finance minister, are expected to be retained in the current posts, according to government and LDP sources. Abe is believed to have strong trust in Suga and Aso, who has stayed on as cabinet members since Abe's comeback as prime minister in December 2012, some five years after the end of the first term. Through the renewal of the cabinet and the party leadership, Abe apparently hopes to dispel negative images of his administration given by the scandal over the school operator headed by a personal friend of his, as well as by the steamrolling of a controversial anticonspiracy bill. Abe also aims to reinforce his power base in the LDP as the party is slated to begin work in earnest to draw up specific proposals to amend the country's constitution, with a view to realizing constitutional revisions in 2020. He is likely to conduct cabinet and party leadership reshuffles in September or late August, before an extraordinary session of the Diet, Japan's parliament, in autumn, the sources said. In the expected cabinet reshuffle, the focal point is the fate of Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who appears eager to become Abe's successor. Within his party faction, there are calls for Kishida to leave the government to prepare for the next LDP leadership election. Others in the spotlight include Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, who has been under fire over an alleged data cover-up at her ministry, and Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda, who was grilled by the opposition camp for his insufficient explanations about the anticonspiracy bill. In the LDP, Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and Vice President Masahiko Komura are viewed as likely to remain in the posts. (Jiji Press)