October 23, 2025

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

After being elected as Japan’s first female prime minister, Liberal Democratic Party President Takaichi Sanae formed her Cabinet which will push forward with the coalition agreement with the “Nippon Ishin no Kai” party. The agreement, while leaving untouched public demands as indicated in the July House of Councillors election, aims to implement anti-people policies, such as an adverse revision of the Constitution, huge military expansion, and cutbacks in social welfare services. The Takaichi government will inevitably face increasing clashes with the general public.

The lineup of the Takaichi Cabinet is characterized by hawkish lawmakers whose beliefs are close to those of PM Takaichi. For example, Kihara Minoru, who was appointed to the key Cabinet post of Chief Cabinet Secretary, worshipped at the war-glorifying Yasukuni Shrine when he served as Defense Minister. Koizumi Shinjiro, who was named Defense Minister, is also a pro-Yasukuni lawmaker. He boasts that after becoming a Dietmember, he visits the shrine every year on August 15, the anniversary of the end of WWII.

The number of women in the 19-member Cabinet is only three, including Takaichi. The two worked to help achieve Takaichi’s victory in the LDP presidential election. Although Takaichi said that her Cabinet would include as many women as Nordic countries’ cabinets, she failed to achieve a record-equaling level of five. Furthermore, Takaichi selected Onoda Kimi, who takes a “zero illegal foreigners” stance and fuels xenophobia, for the post in charge of foreigner-related policies and economic security.

PM Takaichi at a press conference after assuming the post expressed her intent to accelerate a revision of the three key national security documents which specify an increase in military spending to 2% of GDP. This shows her willingness to respond to the Trump administration’s demand for an increase in Japan’s military budget to 3.5% of GDP. Government spending related to people’s livelihoods will inevitably be further reduced.

PM Takaichi, while announcing her decision to provide subsidies to hospitals and nursing-care facilities to reduce their financial difficulties, intends to go forward with a 4-trillion-yen cut in national medical expenses as agreed upon with the Ishin party. Consequently, she will be faced with a contradiction. Regarding measures to deal with rising prices, Takaichi withdrew a plan to distribute a cash handout of 20,000 yen for every citizen, the LDP-Komei coalition’s promise in the July Upper House election, claiming that this plan failed to gain sufficient public understanding. She also deferred a decision regarding the strong public demand to lower the consumption tax rate.