KYODO NEWS



 

Fumio Kishida was re-elected Wednesday as Japan's prime minister by parliament after his ruling party secured a majority in the House of Representatives election late last month, making a fresh start to the work of reviving the pandemic-hit economy and redistributing wealth to households.

Kishida retained the lineup of his first Cabinet, formed on Oct. 4 when he took office, except for naming a foreign minister -- Yoshimasa Hayashi, a former education minister who heads a nonpartisan lawmakers' group that promotes Japan-China relations.

Kishida will now seek to deliver on his election pledges, including pursuing what he calls a "new capitalism" aimed at achieving economic growth and rectifying wealth disparities, before going into a House of Councillors election next summer.

On the first day of a three-day special parliamentary session, Kishida was re-elected as prime minister with 297 votes in the 465-member lower house. He also garnered 141 votes in the 245-member upper house.

Following the parliamentary procedures, the new Cabinet lineup was announced.

Kishida had held the post of foreign minister himself since naming its previous occupant, Toshimitsu Motegi, as the Liberal Democratic Party's secretary general earlier this month to replace Akira Amari, who was unexpectedly defeated in his single-seat district in the Oct. 31 lower house election before securing a seat through the proportional representation system.

Former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani was named as Kishida's special adviser on human rights issues. Nakatani is a leading advocate of introducing sanctions on foreign government officials believed to be human rights offenders, similar to those under the U.S. Magnitsky Act.

The powerful lower chamber elected Hiroyuki Hosoda, a former chief Cabinet secretary, as its speaker and picked as vice speaker Banri Kaieda, a former industry minister and a member of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will succeed Hosoda as the chair of the LDP's largest faction, which he left in 2012 to become the country's leader.

After first being named prime minister, Kishida was forced to quickly dissolve the lower house for an election less than two weeks after taking office, with lower house members' terms expiring Oct. 21.

The decision gave a boost to Kishida and his party toward delivering on their policies as the LDP secured a comfortable majority in the lower house together with its coalition ally Komeito, although Amari's defeat in the single-seat district has cast a shadow over the party.

"In a short period of time, the government has pushed forward policies with speed," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno in reflecting on the past month.

The government set up a number of committees for realizing Kishida's vision of a "new capitalism," and Kishida held phone talks with world leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific region, Matsuno said at a morning press conference.

"The Kishida government's basic stance is to listen carefully to the voices of the people and speedily carry out policies to address their worries about the coronavirus, hopes for economic recovery and sense of crisis about the increasingly severe international situation," he added.

The LDP is seeking to convene an extraordinary Diet session later this year to pass a supplementary budget for fiscal 2021 that includes stimulus measures to ease the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The extra budget, expected to be worth 30 trillion yen ($265 billion), will cover distribution of cash and vouchers each worth 50,000 yen to those aged 18 and younger as well as resumption of the government's "Go To Travel" tourism promotion campaign that subsidizes a part of domestic travel spending.

Kishida also aims to realize a pay hike for care workers, nursery school staff and nurses.

On the diplomatic front, Kishida is seeking to visit the United States for a summit with Biden by the year-end after the two had a brief conversation at a U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month.

The LDP won 261 seats in the lower house in the latest election, 15 fewer than it previously held but enough to effectively control all standing committees and force through legislation if it desires. Komeito went from 29 to 32.

The CDPJ fell from 110 to 96 while one of the opposition groups it allied with, the Japanese Communist Party, dropped from 12 to 10 as voters apparently shunned their willingness to cooperate despite ideological differences.

On the last day of the special session Friday, CDPJ leader Yukio Edano is expected to step down over the election loss.

The CDPJ is set to hold its leadership election on Nov. 30 with campaigning starting on Nov. 19, party sources said.

Junya Ogawa, a former parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications, and Hiroshi Ogushi, a former parliamentary vice minister for finance, have also suggested their willingness to run.

Several other lawmakers, including former Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, former land minister Sumio Mabuchi, Kenta Izumi, the CDPJ's policy chief, and Kenji Eda, acting leader of the party, have also been floated as a possible successor to Edano.


Japan PM Kishida's new Cabinet lineup

The following is the lineup of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's new Cabinet formed Wednesday.
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Prime Minister
Fumio Kishida 64
 
Internal Affairs and Communications Minister
Yasushi Kaneko 60 (R)
 
Justice Minister
Yoshihisa Furukawa 56 (R)
 
Foreign Minister
Yoshimasa Hayashi 60
 
Finance Minister
Minister in charge of financial services
Minister in charge of overcoming deflation
Shunichi Suzuki 68 (R)
 
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister
Minister in charge of rebuilding education
Shinsuke Suematsu 65 (R)
 
Health, Labor and Welfare Minister
Shigeyuki Goto 65 (R)
 
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister
Genjiro Kaneko 77 (R)
 
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister
Minister in charge of industrial competitiveness
Minister in charge of economic cooperation with Russia
Minister in charge of the response to the economic impact caused by the nuclear accident
Minister for the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation
Koichi Haguida 58 (R)
 
Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister
Minister in charge of water cycle policy
Testuo Saito 69 (R)
 
Environment Minister
Minister in charge of nuclear emergency
Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi 67 (R)
 
Defense Minister
Nobuo Kishi 62 (R)
 
Chief Cabinet Secretary
Minister in charge of mitigating the impact of U.S. forces in Okinawa
Minister in charge of the abduction issue
Hirokazu Matsuno 59 (R)
 
Minister for Digital Agency
Minister in charge of administrative reform
Minister in charge of regulatory reform
Karen Makishima 45 (F) (R)
 
Reconstruction Minister
Minister in charge of comprehensive policy coordination for revival from the nuclear accident at Fukushima
Minister in charge of Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs
Kosaburo Nishime 67 (R)
 
Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission
Minister in charge of building national resilience
Minister in charge of territorial issues
Minister in charge of civil services reform
Minister in charge of disaster management and ocean policy
Satoshi Ninoyu 77 (R)
 
Minister in charge of regional revitalization
Minister in charge of measures for declining birthrate
Minister in charge of gender equality
Minister in charge of women's empowerment
Minister in charge of children's policies
Minister in charge of measures for loneliness and isolation
Seiko Noda 61 (F) (R)
 
Minister in charge of economic revitalization
Minister in charge of new capitalism
Minister in charge of measures for coronavirus and health crisis management
Minister in charge of social security reform
Minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy
Daishiro Yamagiwa 53 (R)
 
Minister in charge of economic security
Minister in charge of science and technology policy
Minister in charge of space policy
Takayuki Kobayashi 46 (R)
 
Minister for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games
Minister in charge of promoting coronavirus vaccinations
Noriko Horiuchi 56 (F) (R)
 
Minister for the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka
Minister in charge of building cohesive society
Minister in charge of digital garden city state concept
Minister in charge of consumer affairs and food safety
Minister in charge of "Cool Japan" strategy
Minister in charge of intellectual property strategy
Kenji Wakamiya 60 (R)
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NOTES: Saito is a member of the Komeito party. The others are from the Liberal Democratic Party.
 
(F) denotes female ministers.
 
(R) denotes Cabinet members who retained their posts.