Do we like Fumio Kishida?
Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words of his own and a real apology to LGBTQ+ groups, but he stood by the marriage ban and led through party scandals.
Fumio Kishida is a former Japanese prime minister from the Liberal Democratic Party, the long-ruling conservative party. He announced in August 2024 that he wouldn't seek re-election as party leader, which ended his time as PM. Reuters-style framing aside, the Irish Times put it down to public disaffection over political scandals and rising living costs.
The scandal that did the damage was about money. His ratings fell after unrecorded political donations, kept in a slush fund, came to light at LDP fundraising events. Announcing his exit, he said “Politics cannot function without public trust.” I couldn't open a full account of the prosecutions, so this column doesn't go into who was charged.
The other mess was the Unification Church, the group Shinzo Abe's assassin said he targeted over its ties to Abe. NPR reports the LDP admitted about half its lawmakers had ties to the church, and the Tokyo High Court upheld its dissolution in March 2026. The Irish Times says Kishida's ratings fell after the revelations about the party's ties. NPR doesn't mention him in the ruling, so it's his party's baggage, not a finding about him.
Now the harm check. In February 2023 an aide was sacked after telling reporters he wouldn't want LGBTQ people as neighbours. Kishida called the remark “extremely inappropriate”, met LGBTQ groups, apologised in person, and appointed a special aide on the issue. Days later he told parliament that barring same-sex couples from marrying was not unjust discrimination by the state, which didn't help his case.
Nothing new on him lately. In a November 2025 interview with Hiroshima local media he said he'd keep to Japan's Three Non-Nuclear Principles, as Xinhua reported. His Diet seat and the occasional forum speech keep him in the news. That's honestly about the whole recent file.
Put together, he's a cautious establishment man: nothing hateful, an apology when pushed, and a record that stops short of marriage equality. The harm test is a pass with an asterisk for the marriage stance. The good-person test is a close call because the money and church scandals happened under his leadership. Support him on civility, but he's no champion.