Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba intended to increase the seats in the snap election in his early term. However, it was a complete strategic mistake by his Liberal Democratic Party.

The ruling LDP is a combination of two quasi-parties. One is the mainstream faction, the former PM Fumio Kishida belongs, and the other is the outsiders, once Shinzo Abe led. In the UK, figuratively speaking about their character, the former would be the Labour and the latter the Conservative.

Ishiba was elected by the mainstream members in the last party leadership contest. Having long been at odds with Abe, Ishiba used the slush-fund scandal’s pretext not to endorse the Abe faction’s parliamentarians for the election. The Nikkei coverage reports that he did not intend to endorse them from the beginning and that he has been puzzling over the excuse for their removal. The dominant view is that this was a purge of the Abe faction by Ishiba.

Ishiba thought he had swept away his political opponents in this election. However, the opening ballot boxes showed that the Abe faction, which had revitalized the Japanese economy with ‘Abenomics’, was gathering support from independent voters struggling with high living costs and low wages. The LDP ended its splendid years by eliminating the Abe faction and losing its swing vote.

Ishiba seems to think that the reason for his defeat was the Abe faction’s scandal and that he was the victim. However, he does not want to acknowledge that his greatest political rival was the party’s greatest contributor.