Economy

Hello and welcome to the working week.Or, if you are American, a mostly working week. The US is preparing for the Thanksgiving Day celebrations, so expect the traditional run of travel chaos and road gridlock stories in the days leading up to the national holiday on Thursday. Then prepare for the economic analysis of the Black Friday sales figures the day afterwards.After a week or so of international summits, President Joe Biden will be forced to talk turkey with a turkey (rather than other world leaders) this Monday as he undertakes the traditional pardoning of the holiday season fowl — of course, others may choose to save a turkey due to escalating costs. Across the Atlantic, where the avian flu nightmare before Christmas for British festive poultry farmers is getting worse, the big constitutional event is the Supreme Court’s ruling — due on Wednesday — about whether the Scottish parliament can call a second independence referendum without the approval of the UK’s Westminster government.Scottish National party leader Nicola Sturgeon, who somewhat ironically has the first referendum failure to thank for getting the job as first minister because it forced the resignation of her predecessor Alex Salmond, has upped the stakes by bidding for IndyRef2. The expectation is that the court will rule against Sturgeon’s proposal, which some claim is her real aim because it will fuel the nationalist sense of grievance against Westminster ahead of the general election, due in the next two years.British business leaders will be able to have their say about UK politics at the CBI conference, which starts on Monday in Birmingham. Speakers include a “senior cabinet minister”, John Lewis Partnership chair Sharon White and BT Group chief executive Philip Jansen.Oh yes, and there is some more football being played. Click for the FT’s comprehensive Qatar coverage.How is your week looking? Need more information? Hit reply to the newsletter or email me at [email protected] dataThe G7 flash purchasing managers’ index (PMI) reports are the highlight of a light statistical schedule, thanks in large part to Thanksgiving. Also, the OECD updates its economic outlook forecasts on Tuesday. Rate setting intentions will be in the news again with the November Federal Open Market Committee minutes showing just how opinions are changing among the US central bankers. Rate hikes are expected in South Korea, forecast to rise by 25 basis points, and South Africa, where a 75 basis point increase is forecast. Turkey bucks this trend with an expected jumbo drop of 150 basis points.CompaniesJust in time for the biggest retail event of the US calendar, we have a clutch of earnings from US and UK retailers Best Buy, Abercrombie & Fitch, Halfords, Pets at Home and Mothercare.Ingka Group, which owns most of the Ikea stores worldwide, reports full-year figures on Thursday, which will include profits for the home furnishing retailer.Key economic and company reportsHere is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.MondayChina, monthly interest rate decisionGermany, October producer price index (PPI) inflation rate dataHong Kong, October consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate dataThailand, Q3 GDP figuresResults: Agilent Technologies Q4, Compass Group FY, Urban Outfitters Q3, Virgin Money FY, Zoom Q3TuesdayCanada, monthly retail sales figuresEU, eurozone November consumer confidence survey dataHungary, monthly monetary policy committee rate-setting meetingNigeria, monthly monetary policy committee rate-setting meetingOECD’s latest Economic Outlook, containing projections for the world economyUK, public sector net borrowing figuresResults: Abercrombie & Fitch Q3, Analog Devices Q4, AO World H1, Babcock International H1, Best Buy Q3, CRH trading update, Dollar Tree Q3, Homeserve H1, HP Q4, Medtronic Q2, Nordstrom Q3, Severn Trent H1, Warner Music Group Q4WednesdayAustralia, EU, France, UK, US: S&P Global manufacturing and services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dataNew Zealand, monthly monetary policy committee rate-setting meetingSouth Africa, October CPI inflation rate dataSweden, monthly monetary policy committee meetingUS, Federal Open Market Committee’s November meeting minutes published. Plus, new home sales data.Results: Britvic FY, De La Rue H1, Deere & Co Q4, Halfords FY, Johnson Matthey H1, Naspers H1, Mothercare H1, Pets at Home H1, Prosus H1, United Utilities H1ThursdayEU, European Central Bank monetary policy meeting accountFrance, November business confidence dataGermany, Ifo business climate surveyJapan, November manufacturing and services PMI dataSingapore, October CPI inflation rate dataSouth Africa, monthly monetary policy committee rate-setting meetingSouth Korea, monthly monetary policy committee rate-setting meetingTurkey, interest rate decisionUK, CBI industrial trends surveyResults: Dr Martens H1, Ingka Group FY, Jet2 H1, Kingfisher Q3 trading update, Rémy Cointreau H1FridayFrance, November consumer confidence dataGermany, GfK consumer climate survey and Q3 GDP figuresJapan, November CPI and PPI inflation rate dataMalaysia, October CPI inflation rate dataSpain, October PPI inflation rate dataSweden, October PPI inflation rate dataWorld eventsFinally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week. MondayUK, CBI annual conference begins in BirminghamUS, president Joe Biden pardons the National Thanksgiving Turkey in the annual ceremony at the White HouseTuesdayCyprus, University of Nicosia hosts a meetup with Changpeng Zhao (CZ), chief executive of Binance. Notable given the turmoil in the cryptocurrency market following the collapse of rival FTX.Mexico, Mariachi bands perform to celebrate the feast day of Santa Cecilia, patron saint of musiciansWednesdayUK, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa arrives in London for a state visit, the first time King Charles III has hosted such an event as monarchUK, Supreme Court judgment due on case of whether the Scottish parliament can call a second referendum on independence without the approval of the UK governmentThursdayUK, Bank of England Watchers’ Conference in London, including keynote speeches from deputy BoE governor Dave Ramsden and European Central Bank executive board member Isabel SchnabelUS, Thanksgiving Day public holidayFridayUK, 70th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the world’s longest running theatre play, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre in LondonUS, Traditional Black Friday sales day begin when retailers attempt to sell so much that their results for the year go into the black. Also, the 20th anniversary Department of Homeland Security being created.SaturdayEgypt, centenary of British Egyptologist Howard Carter and his employer Lord Carnarvon entering the tomb of Tutankhamun in LuxorTaiwan, local mayoral electionsUK, national rail strike by train drivers affiliated to the Aslef union, across 12 operating companies, in an ongoing dispute over paySundayFirst Day of Advent in the Gregorian Christian calendar, marking the start of the western church’s countdown to Christmas. More

Brazilian economist and former central bank head Ilan Goldfajn has won the race to lead Latin America’s most important development bank, after Argentina withdrew its own candidate and the US swung behind him.Goldfajn trounced his main rivals from Chile and Mexico for the presidency of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on the first round of voting, taking around 80 per cent, according to sources close to the process. His appointment was later confirmed by the IDB. Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández agreed at the last minute to drop his candidate, international economic relations official Cecilia Todesca, and back Goldfajn in return for a senior role for an Argentine at the bank, according to a source close to the process.

The IDB arranged funding of more than $23bn to Latin America and the Caribbean last year and its president is chosen by the 48 shareholder countries. The US wields the most votes, with 30 per cent, followed by Brazil and Argentina with 11.4 per cent each, and Mexico with 7.3 per cent.Goldfajn had taken leave from his current role as the head of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department to run for the post. He faces big challenges at the Washington-based IDB, where senior staff are still bruised from the turmoil surrounding the tenure of the previous president, who was fired in September.Cuban-American Mauricio Claver-Carone, a Trump nominee, was removed by the IDB’s governors after an external investigation found he had probably violated ethics rules by conducting a relationship with a subordinate and giving her two large pay rises. Claver-Carone and the woman both denied a relationship. Goldfajn, 56, was born in Israel, earned a doctorate in economics from MIT and will be the IDB’s first Brazilian president. He presented himself as an apolitical, technocratic choice who would lead the bank in a transparent and consensual way after the conflicts of the Claver-Carone era.“We need to motivate back the institution,” he told the Financial Times in an interview last week. He added that if he won, his top priorities would be to use the bank’s firepower to address poverty, inequality, food insecurity, climate change and improve the region’s financial infrastructure.“This needs to be an evidence and data-oriented bank, looking at when projects are effective,” Goldfajn said. “You need to look at the numbers. I like data, I like to look at the evidence.”Internal IDB evaluations suggested that the efficiency of existing lending needed to be improved and the balance sheet optimised, he added. “It’s possible to do more with the same capital.”Washington had favoured Goldfajn from an early stage because of his strong experience and management credentials. But there had been concern that his chances might be affected by a lack of support from Brazil’s leftwing president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.Goldfajn was nominated by the government of outgoing hard-right president Jair Bolsonaro and two senior figures close to Lula had publicly questioned the choice. They suggested that the IDB election should be postponed until after Lula’s inauguration next year to allow the incoming Brazilian leader to put forward his own candidate, an idea which was swiftly rejected by the US. More

Five countries – Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil and Chile – had nominated candidates to head the IDB, the largest development bank in Latin America, after the turmoil of the past year severely damaged morale at the institution.Headquartered in Washington, the IDB is a key investor in Latin America and the Caribbean, responsible for $23.4 billion in financial commitments in 2021 and hundreds of infrastructure, health and tourism projects. In a statement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen congratulated Goldfajn and said the United States stands by the IDB as the region’s premier development finance institution.”We are counting on President Goldfajn to lead this organization to be an engine of change and progress for our neighbors across Latin America and the Caribbean,” Yellen said.The scandalous ouster of Claver-Carone, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump, had made it more likely that the next candidate would hail from Latin America, following prior precedent. Even so, Goldfajn will be under pressure to work closely with the United States, Europe and China given that all are members and may look to assert influence from afar.The IDB could be a battleground for a geopolitical tussle over key financing decisions for its members as Latin America grapples with stubbornly high inflation and an economic slowdown. Argentina had nominated Cecilia Todesca Bocco, the country’s international economic relations secretary.Mexico nominated its central bank Deputy Governor Gerardo Esquivel and Chile put forth its former Finance Minister Nicolas Eyzaguirre. Brazil’s outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro nominated Goldfajn, the former president of the country’s central bank and currently the head of the International Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere department. Trinidad and Tobago nominated Gerard Johnson, a former IDB official now serving as a senior consultant to the Jamaican finance ministry.The vote followed a meeting of the IDB governors, who are usually finance ministers or other high-ranking economic authorities from the bank’s 48 member countries.IDB shareholders have underscored the importance of rebuilding trust in the institution after Claver-Carone’s rocky, nearly two-year tenure. More

Will Turkey slash interest rates again? Turkey’s rate-cutting streak is set to continue when policymakers meet on Thursday, as its president calls for its key interest rate to fall to single digits this year, even as inflation accelerates past 85 per cent.The monetary policy committee has slashed the benchmark rate by a cumulative 3.5 percentage points since August to 10.5 per cent. It is expected to cut the rates by another 1.5 percentage points, according to Reuters poll. Sahap Kavcıoğlu, the central bank governor, has acknowledged his lack of success in slowing inflation, but said last month he expects price growth to peak this autumn after hitting its highest level in a quarter of a century.He faces pressure from president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who wants ultra-loose monetary policy to juice up the economy ahead of elections next year. Erdoğan has called himself “an enemy of interest” and contrary to mainstream economic theory, believes that high rates feed inflation rather than slow it.The growth-at-all-costs policy has hammered the lira, which has lost nearly 43 per cent of its value against the dollar in a year. The lira has steadied in recent months after a series of interventions by the central bank and policies pursued by the government.Turkey’s real interest rate, which adjusts for inflation, is among the lowest in the world at minus 75 per cent. Many economists now shrug off the bank’s policy decisions, and private banks rely on other interest rates that move independently of the benchmark, such as deposit rates, said Haluk Burumcekci, the founder of Burumcekci Research and Consulting.“It doesn’t make much difference if the rate is 10.5 per cent or 9 per cent,” he said. Ayla Jean YackleyWhat will PMI data reveal about the health of Europe’s economy?A series of closely watched survey of business confidence is expected to add evidence that the UK economy has already fallen into a recession and the eurozone is following behind.The purchasing managers’ indices, published on Wednesday, is forecast to show a contraction in activity compared to the previous month.Economists polled by Reuters expect the UK composite PMI index, a measure of activity in the manufacturing and services sector, to have declined to 47.5 in November from the October reading of 48.2. Any reading below 50 indicates a majority of businesses reporting deteriorating activity.The UK economy already contracted in the second quarter and the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent body charged with analysing public finances, expects it to be in recession until the final quarter of next year as high inflation and higher borrowing costs hit households and businesses.Analysts also expect the eurozone PMI to contract even as its economy expanded in the third quarter. Economists forecast the PMI Composite index will decline to 47 in November, from 47.3 in the previous month.“With little in the way of major new news to shift the economic narrative and inflation still high at 10.6 per cent in October, we expect economic conditions to remain weak,” said Ellie Henderson, economist at Investec.Many economists forecast that the eurozone recession will end in the first quarter of next year as government support measures help drive a recovery from the spring.Frédérique Carrier, head of investment strategy at RBC Wealth Management, noted that “the UK seems to be the first major economy to enter recession, and could be the last to exit.” Valentina Romei What did Fed officials discuss at the last policy-setting meeting? Federal Reserve officials agree that the central bank should continue to raise interest rates, but opinions diverge on the peak of the interest rate cycle.Minutes from the Fed’s early November rate-setting meeting will provide clues on what was discussed by policymakers when they enacted their fourth-straight 0.75 percentage point rate rise. Since the last meeting, Mary Daly, who leads the San Francisco Fed branch, said the central bank could raise rates to the range of 4.75 to 5 per cent and then pause, while St Louis branch president Jim Bullard is more hawkish and suggested that the benchmark rate could go as high as 7 per cent. The central bank has already boosted the federal funds rate from near zero at the start of the year to a range of 3.75 to 4 per cent. Mixed signals on the state of the economy have also clouded the outlook. While lay-offs at big technology companies have drawn headlines, the US labour market remains tight. Americans filed 222,000 new jobless claims in the week ended November 5, a historically low figure.On the other hand, October’s consumer price index and producer price index reports pointed to a slowdown in inflation, but both figures are significantly higher than the Fed’s 2 per cent inflation target. “The US economy is sending us some wildly mixed signals,” Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari said in a speech last week. “It’s an open question of how far we’re going to have to go with interest rates.” Jaren Kerr More

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s new right-wing government plans to announce some 30 billion euros in new spending on Monday in a budget for next year, mainly focused on curbing the impact of high energy prices while postponing some of its most lavish election promises.The continued energy crisis, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, means Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her allies will not be able to make good on their more extravagant electoral campaign promises, including swingeing tax cuts.”We won’t be able to do everything, all at once. Past attempts to do that have ended in disaster,” Industry Minister Adolfo Urso told La Stampa newspaper on Sunday.Meloni has already said that roughly two thirds of the additional spending power would be used to help companies and households survive record-high gas and electricity bills. This comes on top of some 75 billion euros splashed out in 2022 to tackle surging energy prices.The cabinet this month lifted the 2023 deficit target to 4.5% of gross domestic product from a 3.4% forecast made by the previous government of Mario Draghi. But ministers say they will be fiscally prudent, and avoid the budget errors that unseated Britain’s former prime minister Liz Truss. As a result, campaign pledges by the far-right League party for a generous reform of the pension system have been delayed, and while the budget will include a reduction of the tax burden on labour, large scale income tax cuts have been ruled out.In an effort to help families face up to eye-watering inflation, which under the EU-harmonised index hit 12.6% year-on-year in October, the cabinet is considering eliminating sales tax on core essentials such as milk and bread.Additional borrowing will pay for some of the spending pledges, but around 3 billion euros in new revenues are expected to be raised via a windfall tax on profits of energy companies that have benefited from sky-high oil and gas prices.Looking to carve out savings, Meloni is also expected to start rolling back a “citizens’ wage” poverty relief scheme. Leftist parties say the measure is vital given the troubled state of the economy, but coalition parties say it is enabling the unemployed to dodge the jobs market.”(Payments) will be stopped for those aged 18-59 who can work. But it won’t happen at once. There will be a transition phase in 2023,” government undersecretary Giovanbattista Fazzolari told Corriere della Sera newspaper.Once the cabinet approves the budget, parliament will have until Dec. 31 to pass it into law. ($1 = 0.9686 euros) More

NEW YORK (Reuters) -As the most important shopping period of the year approaches, some investors are betting shares of beaten-down consumer stocks will benefit if inflation keeps falling and retail sales stay strong.Consumer discretionary stocks, a group whose members run the gamut from Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and automaker Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc to retailer Target Corp (NYSE:TGT), have been walloped by surging prices, with the S&P 500’s consumer discretionary sector falling nearly 33% for the year to date compared with a nearly 17% fall for the broader index.Yet recent data has shown signs that inflation may be ebbing in the face of stronger-than-expected retail spending, raising cautious optimism that the economy could avoid a recession or experience only a mild downturn. Investors poured a net $1.05 billion into consumer discretionary stocks in the past week, the sixth-largest weekly inflows since 2008, data from BofA Global Research showed. The upcoming Black Friday, the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and traditionally one of the year’s biggest shopping days, may give investors greater insight into the extent that consumers are opening their wallets.“There’s some questions as to how strong the consumer really is, so this will be a tricky holiday season,” said Edward Yruma, an analyst at Piper Sandler. “Everybody is watching the strength of the consumer and so far the consumer has held.” Yruma is bullish on retailers Nordstrom Inc (NYSE:JWN) and Target. He believes, however, it may be too early to bet on the sector as a whole since inflation remains high by historical standards while many on Wall Street fear the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy tightening may bring on a U.S. recession. To be sure, consumer stocks have had more than their fair share of woes this year. Target shares plunged on Tuesday after the company warned of “dramatic changes” in consumer behavior that were hurting demand. Amazon.com, the world’s biggest online retailer, said on Oct. 27 it was preparing for slower growth because “people’s budgets are tight” due to inflation. The companies’ shares are down 29.6% and 43.5% year-to-date, respectively. While retail sales in October were strong, data suggests that subprime auto loan delinquencies are increasing and higher-income shoppers are starting to trade down, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) economists said in a note on Friday. “The consumer has been a pillar of strength this year, but as rates keep rising and the labor market slows, consumers will have no choice but to pull back on spending,” the firm’s economists wrote. The bank’s analysts are underweight the consumer discretionary sector. Others, however, see reasons to remain bullish – even in the face of a potential economic downturn. “Recession fears are so priced in to this group,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group. “If we have a mild recession … they will do very well from here on out.” He is betting shares of retailers, hotels and restaurants will outperform the rest of the sector in the coming year.Some companies’ lower valuations may also give investors wiggle room if the economy slows, said Bobby Griffin, an analyst at Raymond James. His firm has a strong “buy” on shares of Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), which are trading at a 15% discount to their historic forward price-to-earnings multiple.”We’ve had this fear of inflation all year and the consumer has held up pretty well so far,” he said. At the same time, signs of consumer strength could also be a red flag to the inflation-fighting Fed, bolstering the case for the central bank to push forward with the monetary policy tightening that has pressured markets and drained risk appetite this year.Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance, believes signs that consumers are not being affected by rising rates could lead to a higher-than-expected peak in the Fed’s rate hiking cycle. “We’re skeptical the worst is behind us,” he said. More

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has been warned by senior Eurosceptics not to sacrifice the “freedoms” of Brexit by pursuing a closer, Swiss-style trading relationship with the EU.Senior government figures have talked about the UK-EU relationship evolving over time so that friction on trade is minimised, citing the relative ease with which trade flows between the EU and Switzerland.Allies of Sunak said the UK prime minister wanted to reduce barriers to trade with the EU and was determined to resolve the festering dispute over the so-called Northern Ireland protocol and improve relations with Brussels.But talk in senior government circles of a longer term relationship that echoes the trading proximity of the EU and Switzerland — reported by the Sunday Times and corroborated by the Financial Times — even if not on the same terms.Switzerland pays money into the EU budget and aligns closely with the bloc’s laws to secure access to the single market — a model rejected by senior ministers and Eurosceptics in negotiations with Brussels.Lord David Frost, former Brexit secretary, said that if the reports were correct he hoped “the government thinks better of these plans, fast”. Frost negotiated the “hard” Brexit that kept Britain at arm’s length from the single market.Simon Clarke, a Tory MP and former cabinet minister said: “I very much hope and believe this isn’t something under consideration. We settled the question of leaving the EU, definitively, in 2019.”Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, said: “This level of betrayal will never be forgiven.” While senior government have said they want to remove barriers to trade with the EU, like Switzerland, they insist it would not be on the same terms. “A Swiss model isn’t being considered,” said one.Steve Barclay, another former Brexit secretary and now health secretary, said he did not “recognise” the reports, but said it was vital that Britain did not jeopardise the “opportunities” gained by leaving the EU.Barclay said the Brexit negotiated by Frost and former prime minister Boris Johnson allowed Britain to set its own rules in areas such as financial services, green technology and artificial intelligence. “So it’s absolutely important . . . that we really use the Brexit freedoms we have,” he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge.“We’ve got a prime minister who himself supported Brexit,” he added. “I myself did and was Brexit secretary, and worked very hard to maximise our control of our laws, our borders and our money.”Last week, chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed it would be possible to remove “the vast majority” of trade barriers with the EU. But as with Sunak’s aspiration to resolve the stand-off with Brussels over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading regime, the detail is highly problematic.The EU has made it clear that Britain cannot enjoy single market access unless it applies EU rules and accepts the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and has long decried the “cherry picking” approach favoured in London.While some senior government officials see Swiss-EU trading relations as a potential model in the longer term in terms of cutting friction and bureaucracy, many Tory MPs would oppose the compromises involved.Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and has a very close relationship with the EU created by some 120 bilateral agreements covering trade, services and free movement of people.Attempts to rationalise that network of deals into a single overarching ‘framework agreement’, in which the EU demanded the Swiss align more deeply with EU law and accept the bloc’s court as final arbiter of the deal, collapsed in May last year.Although not an EU member state, Switzerland is partially and deeply integrated into the EU Single Market and has to “dynamically align” its laws with EU law in relevant areas to maintain that access.During the Brexit negotiations the European Commission was also adamant that the UK should not look at the Swiss arrangement as a paradigm for future relations, arguing the size and proximity of the UK economy made such a relationship highly problematic.Labour said it would not adopt the Swiss model if it won the next election, but favoured a bespoke deal with the UK, including agreements on agriculture and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. More

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s internal affairs minister resigned on Sunday in connection with a funding scandal, becoming the third cabinet member to leave in less than a month in a severe blow to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s already shaky support. Kishida’s approval ratings have sunk after the July assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe revealed deep and longstanding ties between ruling Liberal Democratic Party politicians and the Unification Church, a group that critics say is a cult. Internal affairs minister Minoru Terada tendered his resignation to Kishida after media reports the premier was preparing to sack him. Kishida’s office could not be reached for comment on those reports. Terada, under fire for several funding scandals, has acknowledged that one of his support groups had submitted funding documentation ostensibly signed by a dead person.Kishida said he had accepted Terada’s resignation in order to prioritise parliamentary debate, including discussions on a second extra budget for the fiscal year ending in March.Asked about the fact that three ministers have resigned since Oct. 24, Kishida said he would like to apologise.”I feel a heavy responsibility,” he told reporters, adding that he planned to formally name Terada’s successor early on Monday. He is likely to nominate Takeaki Matsumoto, a former foreign minister, NHK public television said. Terada’s departure could further weaken the embattled premier, whose support ratings have remained below 30% in several recent opinion polls, a level that may make it difficult for him to carry out his political agenda.After leading the LDP to an election victory days after Abe was gunned down on the campaign trail, Kishida had been widely expected to enjoy a “golden three years” with no national elections required until 2025.Abe’s suspected killer said his mother was bankrupted by the Unification Church and blamed Abe for promoting it. The LDP has acknowledged many lawmakers have ties to the church but that there is no organisational link to the party.A vast majority of voters also disapproved of Kishida’s decision to hold a state funeral for Abe, which took place at the end of September.Economic revitalisation minister Daishiro Yamagiwa resigned on Oct. 24 due to his ties to the religious group, and Kishida came under fire for what voters saw as his delayed and clumsy handling of the situation. Further damage came from the resignation of justice minister Yasuhiro Hanashi in mid-November for comments seen as making light of his work responsibilities, specifically signing off on executions.Hanashi and Terada’s resignations are likely to be especially painful because they were members of Kishida’s faction in the LDP. More