<figure id="attachment_360141" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-360141" style="width: 2362px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="89119cec"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/ab33f12e0336077dbe5f8b67ecd71e97.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-360141" class="wp-caption-text">Shigeru Ishiba has always been popular among the people. As soon as he became the &#8220;No. 1 candidate for the next prime minister,&#8221; there was an intense negative campaign on the Internet&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
 In a poll conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun on February 17 and 18, the LDP&#8217;s eight Diet members were selected as the &#8220;most suitable person to be the next prime minister.
 The poll asked respondents to choose from among eight LDP Diet members
 The most popular answer was Shigeru Ishiba, former prime minister of the LDP.
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 The most popular answer was Shigeru Ishiba, former LDP secretary general, at 25%, followed by Yoko Kamikawa, foreign minister, at 12%, Sanae Takaichi, minister of economy and security, and Shinjiro Koizumi, former environment minister, at 9% each.
 The Yomiuri Shimbun, in a similar poll, asked who it thought would be the best choice for the next LDP president, and found Ishiba in first place with 21%, former Environment Minister Koizumi in second place with 17%, and Digital Minister Kono in third place with 10%.
 Prime Minister Kishida, with 1% in the Mainichi and 4% in the Yomiuri, is not expected to be reelected, at least not in the near future.
 Mr. Ishiba is often voted No. 1 in all surveys, and he is popular with the public. However, unlike chiefs of state, prime ministers are not directly elected, but rather the Diet members choose the prime minister, so even if he is popular among the people, he cannot become prime minister.
 Because Mr. Ishiba is disliked and isolated within the LDP, he has run for the LDP presidency four times, but has lost all of them. He has no backers because of the fights he has had with Aso and others in the past,&#8221; said a reporter from a national newspaper.
 When the Hosokawa coalition government came to power in 1993 and the LDP fell into opposition, Mr. Ishiba was the first to say, &#8220;There is nothing to be done in a party like this.
 When the LDP fell into opposition in 1993 with the formation of Hosokawa&#8217;s coalition government, Ishiba left the party saying, &#8220;I can do nothing in this party.
 He left the LDP saying, &#8220;I can&#8217;t do anything if I stay in this party.
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 After returning to the party, in 2009, while serving as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries in the cabinet of Taro Aso, he and Kaoru Yosano, a Diet member, stormed into the prime minister&#8217;s office to force Prime Minister Aso, his &#8220;boss,&#8221; to step down from his post.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Suddenly, a flurry of negative posts on &quot;X&quot; began to appear on ......"></div>
Because of this past, there are still few friends in the LDP, and a &#8220;modern&#8221; phenomenon has broken out that symbolizes this.
 As soon as Mr. Ishiba was selected as the &#8220;No. 1 candidate for the next prime minister,&#8221; spam-like posts began to appear on the social networking site &#8220;X.
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 &#8220;Amazing (sweat mark) that a person who borrows a mask worn by someone else for COVID-19 crisis is the number one candidate to be the next prime minister.
 With these words, the same video was being sent out one after another from different accounts.
 The video is an excerpt from a TV program, showing a scene from former Prime Minister Abe&#8217;s wake. Mr. Ishiba holds out his hand to a man who appears to be his attendant, who removes his mask and hands it to Mr. Ishiba.
 The video is cut off at this point, so it is not clear whether Ishiba wore someone else&#8217;s mask after this, but it is certainly a bizarre scene if the video is genuine.
 It would be understandable if the video was posted by a single person, and the post received a lot of likes and reposts, but the fact that multiple accounts posted almost the same video with the same text at the same time suggests that someone may have spread the video manually.
 Or, they may have hired a contractor or other party to send out the videos in an organized manner. It is very eerie that this content is being sent out even from an account name that looks like Arabic letters. Well, there is a possibility that they are &#8220;impresario zombies&#8221; aiming for profit, but either way, there is no doubt that a large number of negative videos of Mr. Ishiba have been circulated.
 Due in part to the faction&#8217;s slush fund problem, the LDP is facing a significant public outcry, and its approval rating is at its lowest level. At the same time, the opposition parties&#8217; party approval ratings have not risen either.
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 In other words, the LDP&#8217;s bigwigs will be elected unless something goes wrong, and the &#8220;factions&#8221; will be able to carry a prime minister who suits them.
 No matter how much you cheer for Mr. Ishiba, the current situation is untenable. &#8230;&#8230;

 Takeshi Kinugawa

 Shigeru Ishiba of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has always been popular with the public and has long been considered the "No. 1 candidate" for prime minister. In the latest poll conducted by newspapers, he was ranked No. 1 across the board. However, when the results were reported, there was an "oddity" on the Internet. ......

An account that looks like Arabic characters&#8230;&#8221; &#8220;Anomalies on the Internet&#8221; started with Shigeru Ishiba&#8217;s &#8220;No. 1 candidate for the next prime minister&#8221;.

An account that looks like Arabic characters…” “Anomalies on the Internet” started with Shigeru Ishiba’s “No. 1 candidate for the next prime minister”.

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