<h2>Facing a sharp slowdown &#8230;&#8230;</h2>
<figure id="attachment_392778" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1024px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-392778"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a082ff91"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/09/cb999b2c6c8ca68d0d07affd88f75c67.jpg" alt="総裁選の候補者による討論会で発言する進次郎氏"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-392778" class="wp-caption-text">Shinjiro speaks during a debate among candidates for the presidential election.</figcaption></figure>
<p>On September 22, with only five days remaining before the LDP presidential election (September 27), former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, 43, left a debate at the party headquarters and headed to Furihua, a high-end Chinese restaurant frequented by celebrities.</p>
<p>The restaurant is known within the LDP as the favorite of former LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai (85). The evening courses range from 14,300 yen to 44,000 yen, prices that would seem out of reach for the average person.</p>
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<p>Although he has not made it public, Shinjiro is known for his love of shark fins, and one wonders if he was indulging his taste for fine cuisine.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He is known for his love of shark&#8217;s fin, and one would have thought that he would have indulged his taste for fine cuisine. For lunch, he serves high-end yakiniku bento (barbecued meat) from Juryoen and KINTAN, as well as bento boxes from New Otani, which have been well received by Diet members. Ken Saito (Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, 65), who gave up running for office because he could not gather enough nominees, was brought into his own camp on the 17th, and he gathered 58 votes from Diet members. He had been planning his strategy in anticipation of a runoff election, but the party member vote has been sluggish. In party member surveys by the Yomiuri Shimbun and NTV (September 14-15 and 21-22), which are considered highly credible, he has been in third place for two weeks in a row, and the camp is becoming impatient.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The party members&#8217; votes are said to be close to the public&#8217;s perception, and if the party does not come in first or second here, it will not be regarded as the &#8220;face of the election.&#8221; September 26 is the deadline for voting for party members, and the distribution of the party members&#8217; votes will be known one or two days before the election day. Even those who have already expressed their support for the party will probably leave at the last minute.</span></p>
<p>In an emergency poll conducted by Nihon Keizai Shimbun and TV Tokyo on August 23, Shinjiro was ranked first in the &#8220;person best suited to be the next prime minister&#8221; category, ahead of Shigeru Ishiba, 67, the former secretary general of the Diet. However, in a survey conducted from September 13 to 15 by the same companies, he was overtaken by Sanae Takaichi, 63, minister in charge of economic security, and dropped to third place. In the Kyodo News survey, he was also ranked third in the party membership vote.</p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="No words of my own."></div>
<h2>Relying on &#8220;Youth and Momentum&#8221; &#8230;&#8230;</h2>
<figure id="attachment_392781" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1187px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-392781"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="d69427c2"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/09/c01cc38a0fd971c8167dcbfc08b45a84.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-392781" class="wp-caption-text">Shinjiro dashing away after his September 6 press conference announcing his candidacy.</figcaption></figure>
<p>Shu Watanabe, 62, a member of the House of Representatives of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), analyzes the presidential race as follows.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He has put forward the idea of &#8216;reviewing the regulations on layoffs, the main pillar of labor market reform,&#8217; but we can see that he is speaking without study or a deep understanding of the issue.&#8221; In the 13-year Abe administration, the answer was given that &#8216;there is no idea of liberalization to be solved with money,&#8217; but I don&#8217;t think he knows that kind of background either. Shinjiro&#8217;s words are pleasant to the ear, but they are not grounded, and the LDP members must have feared that he was just being young and brash, or that he was dangerous.</span></p>
<p>He was regarded as the &#8220;face of the election&#8221; who could blow the slush fund issue out of the water with his exceptional star power, but when it came time to debate the issue, he repeatedly gave answers that were out of line with the questions being asked. However, when it came time to debate the issues, he repeatedly gave answers that were out of line with the questions asked. His lack of understanding of policy and his lack of experience as a politician were exposed.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> He has no ability to look at a draft written by his brain and ask, &#8220;Isn&#8217;t this wrong? He is not capable of checking the drafts written by his brain and saying, &#8220;Isn&#8217;t this wrong? He does not think about issues with his own mind and does not speak in his own words, so he is unable to discern the authenticity of the issues,&#8221; Watanabe said.</span></p>
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<p>In response to Shinjiro&#8217;s predicament, the party&#8217;s &#8220;elders&#8221; have risen to the occasion. Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori (87), an influential member of the former Abe faction, spoke up in the September 16 edition of the Hokkoku Shimbun, saying, &#8220;Mr. Shinjiro is also a member of my office.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Shinjiro-san sometimes comes to my office. He buys rice crackers from Yokosuka and when I tell him how good they are, he brings me more of the same. He is a very charming man with a good heart. As a politician, he is quick to make decisions. He must have inherited that from his father.</span></p>
<p>Former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide, 75, attended the speech in front of JR Sakuragicho Station. Although he was resting in his car until just before the speech and did not appear to be in good physical condition, Mr. Kan encouraged the audience, saying, &#8220;I want to entrust you to steer Japan.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I want to entrust him with the helm of Japan. I want to entrust him with the steering of Japan, and with that in mind, I am supporting him together.</span></p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="In a joint interview, he also gave a misguided answer."></div>
<h2><span class="strongInContent">Distance between Shinjiro and the media</span></h2>
<figure id="attachment_392782" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 3096px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-392782"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="464e06c2"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/09/bf13d1cf6e25ef6952758aec8c02acd0.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-392782" class="wp-caption-text">Business cards that Shinjiro is handing out in his rounds of greetings in the run-up to the presidential election.</figcaption></figure>
<p>Despite the enthusiastic support of his elders, the election campaign staffers are troubled by the situation.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Ten people from the &#8220;Ganesha no Kai,&#8221; a group of Diet members close to Mr. Kan, are among the nominees, many of whom are anxious about the election and are trying to bring Mr. Shinjiro to their hometowns,&#8221; said Mr. Saito, who is also a member of the Ganesha no Kai. Mr. Saito seems to have been sent an autumn wave from the Ishiba camp behind the scenes, and we don&#8217;t know how serious he is. Mr. Mori is touting that he has &#8216;put together 40 members of the Abe faction,&#8217; but the actual situation is not certain, and if Mr. Mori, who has a bad public reputation due to the slush fund issue, comes out, the party members&#8217; votes may run away.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p>The extent of Mr. A&#8217;s misalignment in his role as a media correspondent for the Koizumi campaign was described in a related article, &#8220;[Original] Shinjiro Koizumi sent a shocking document to his local supporters&#8217; association begging for 50,000 yen! (Original).</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The Hirakawa Club&#8217;s secretary-general, who is in charge of the LDP, had offered group interviews to all the candidates in the presidential race, but the camps declined, citing their busy schedules. However, all the candidates except Shinjiro had responded, so we put in another request, and it seems that the sports newspapers also requested a joint interview, which was held together on the 21st. Since the readers of national and regional newspapers and sports newspapers are different, the questions asked during the interview naturally did not mesh. Shinjiro spoke one-sidedly and passionately about labor issues, smugly saying something I didn&#8217;t quite understand: &#8216;I am the first person to have a child during my tenure as minister. After the interview, we asked him if he would like to accompany us on an inspection tour to Futtsu City, Chiba Prefecture, but only NHK, the representative interviewer, raised his hand. Even the media, which initially covered him favorably, are now distancing themselves from him,&#8221; said a reporter from the political section of a national newspaper.</span></p>
<p>The presidential election, to be held today, is a hotly contested race among three candidates. Even as Shinjiro was filling his stomach with his favorite dish, shark fin, he must have been &#8220;pulling away&#8221; from the other camps. At one point it looked as if the presidency was within reach, but whether or not he would be able to remain in the deciding vote is a question. He is on the brink.</p>
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 Daisuke Iwasaki

 On September 22, just five days before the LDP presidential election on September 27, former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi (43) left a debate at the party headquarters and headed for the high-class Chinese restaurant "Furihua," a restaurant frequented by celebrities.

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