An identity crisis is haunting Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is perhaps the most dominant political machine among modern democracies, controlling politics in the country of more than 120 million people for all but a handful of the last 70 years. But now, it’s in the midst of an identity crisis, unsure of what it stands for or who to follow — and perhaps worst of all, seemingly having forgotten how to win.

Dismal performances have the LDP clinging to power as a minority in both houses of parliament and in search of its fifth leader in as many years. These failures have many authors: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, chosen to lead the party a year ago in a hoped-for boost to public popularity that turned out to be a mirage, certainly shares the blame. But there’s plenty to go around, with predecessor Fumio Kishida’s inability to manage various scandals, as well as the assassin of Shinzo Abe, the leader who kept the party in thrall for so long. His absence still weighs heavily.

Like many traditional parties around the world, the LDP is facing an era of generational upheaval, with social media dictating narratives faster than nondigital-native politicians can keep up. But the crisis is not yet existential and it’s fortunate that these struggles come at a time when the traditional opposition is faring even worse. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan suffered a drubbing in July’s Upper House election, with its haplessness explaining the bump in popularity of the fringe Sanseito group as disillusioned LDP voters looked for alternatives.

Now, party members and lawmakers are looking again for someone who can recapture the glory days, in a campaign that kicked off Monday and will culminate in an Oct. 4 vote of lawmakers and rank-and-file party members. The winner will most likely be Japan’s next prime minister. The slogan adopted to promote it is an imperative: "Change, LDP! Talk of Japan’s Future!” They don’t have time to get it wrong again. The country is facing challenges at home, where the public is upset with inflation and over-tourism, and abroad, where the U.S. is imposing tariffs.

Yet it’s far from clear that any of the candidates will bring that change. Indeed, we’ve seen all five before at last year’s vote, when they were rejected in favor of Ishiba. One of CDP leader Yoshihiko Noda’s better rejoinders was to dismiss this vote as a losers’ bracket of competitors that have already been defeated.

Even with a year to polish their policies, none of the five contenders have been able to present a compelling vision. Having had a chance to examine their defeats last year, as well as the situation Ishiba leaves behind, the candidates have all headed for the center: Conservatives have become more moderate and vice versa. Proposals have been taken off the board, replaced with platitudes.

Consider Shinjiro Koizumi, the presumptive front-runner. He made a series of political missteps in his campaign last year, advocating policies such as making it easier for companies to hire and fire workers — which might be a necessary move, but not a politically savvy slogan. He’s ditched that, as well as other divisive ideas like advocating for married couples to be allowed to use separate surnames, and has enlisted Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato to manage his campaign and burnish his conservative credentials.

His chief rival Sanae Takaichi — seen by former Prime Minister Kishida as extremist enough to reportedly merit the nickname "Taliban” — is taking the opposite approach, attempting to sand down some of her sharp edges. Last year, she blasted the Bank of Japan’s rate hikes as "idiotic” and trumpeted her fiscal dovishness; this year, she has emphasized more "responsible” and "wise” spending. At a news conference to kick off the campaigning, she spent much of her time complaining about rowdy tourists filmed kicking deer in her native Nara.

The other three contenders — former Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, current Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi and ex-economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi — are also short on specifics. Few rate their chances, though it’s worth keeping in mind that Ishiba was not the favorite last year, either. A common theme of the candidates has been to offer goals rather than policies — such as promoting higher wages, without detailing how they plan to do it (Kobayashi’s call for government-led investment in large-scale projects such as the semiconductor plants in Kumamoto and Hokkaido was a notable exception.)

The party is still in search of a policy that can succeed Abenomics. Regardless of your position on its merits, Abe’s economic vision in the early years of his second term was crystal clear, both in terms of the goals and how he intended to get there. Since he left office, his successor, Yoshihide Suga, mainly concentrated on small wins, preoccupied with the pandemic; Kishida’s "New Capitalism” was a hodgepodge of contradictory ideas; and if Ishiba had an economic policy, he didn’t tell anyone about it.

There’s still time to articulate their ambition for the country. It took July’s election drubbing to do it, but most of the candidates have (rightly) taken up the issue of overly loose property rights for foreigners and other immigration topics. All five claim that they want to listen to the public. Present a vision, then, one that looks beyond short-term issues and instead shows a path and how to follow it. Failure to offer such a plan usually ends with one thing for LDP leaders — a term as short as Ishiba’s.

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas.