Takayuki Kobayashi, a 40-something candidate for president, does not cut into the “slush fund issue” for a “fundamental reason.

Eleven of the Diet members who attended Kobayashi’s press conference to announce his candidacy were members of the former Abe faction. If we pursue the slush fund too much, we will lose prospects for support for the presidential election, especially from the former Abe faction. Since there are so many candidates in the race, no candidate is likely to win a majority of votes in the first round of voting; if the first-place finisher does not win a majority, a runoff will be held between the top two candidates; in the first round of voting, the number of votes for Diet members and party members is equal, 367 each, but in the runoff between the top two candidates, the number of party members will decrease to 47 for prefectural prefectures. On the other hand, the Diet member votes will remain at 367. The Diet members’ votes will account for a larger weight. Since the Diet member vote determines the outcome of the election, it may be impossible to implement reforms that would cause pain to Diet members.

In retrospect, when the factional slush fund scandal broke, LDP lawmakers, including younger members, remained silent, except for a few, such as former Secretary General Shigeru Ishiba (67). Now that the money laundering scandal has settled down and the presidential election is approaching, they are suddenly calling for reform of the party by the younger generation.

The presidential election must be a fundamental change in the LDP,” he said. “The LDP needs to make further amendments to the Politics and Money Act, or change its structure so that it cannot be manipulated by its elders. In gathering nominees, I want to make the LDP the kind of government I want to lead, not the conventional one based on the number of nominees. This is the kind of LDP I want to change. It would be good to have a candidate who gathers nominees with his policies, aspirations, and view of the nation, saying, “If you agree with me, please become a nominee.

The birth of a new LDP president in his 40s would give a sense of “renewal. However, this alone is nothing more than a change of “cover” to prolong the LDP’s life. The new LDP president must be someone who will fundamentally change the old LDP structure itself.