Japan is about to get its first female prime minister, after Sanae Takaichi was elected as leader of the governing Liberal Democratic party [LDP] – a victory that should see her installed as the country’s new leader in the middle of the month.
Takaichi, a right-winger who has voiced admiration for Margaret Thatcher in her quest to build a “strong and prosperous” Japan on the international stage, beat her moderate rival, Shinjiro Koizumi, in a runoff election at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo on Saturday.
The election for party president was held after the outgoing prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, announced his resignation after just a year in office. Ishiba, a moderate whose election last year had angered the right of his party, said it was time to find a successor to lead a “new LDP”.
Takaichi, 64, inherits a party that has suffered two bruising elections in the past year as voters punished it over a funding scandal and its failure to address the cost-of-living crisis.
“Recently, I have heard harsh voices from across the country saying we don’t know what the LDP stands for anymore,” Takaichi said moments before the runoff vote. “That sense of urgency drove me. I wanted to turn people’s anxieties about their daily lives and the future into hope.”
As expected, Takaichi won the first round of voting, securing of 183 of 589 votes, with Koizumi in second place with 164 votes. Three other candidates were knocked out of the contest. The runoff, in which MPs’ votes were given greater weight than those of rank-and-file party members, theoretically favoured Koizumi, who was said to be more popular among lawmakers. But it was Takaichi who emerged winner after the second, decisive round of voting.
Although the LDP-led coalition no longer holds a majority of seats in parliament, Takaichi is widely expected to be approved as prime minister when MPs vote in the middle of the month.
To deny her the prime ministership, opposition parties would have to unite behind their own candidate – a scenario observers agree is unthinkable.
Her immediate task will be to unite her party and win back public support after more than a year of scandal and poor election results.
She will also have to address public concern over migration and mass tourism, and try to win over younger voters who turned to populist minor parties such as Sanseito in this summer’s upper house elections. Japan should “reconsider policies that allow in people with completely different cultures and backgrounds”, Takaichi said during the campaign.
It is impossible to understate the symbolism of Takaichi’s victory in a country that has few female politicians and business leaders, and consistently ranks poorly in global gender gap comparisons. She has, though, opposed policies that many voters believe would advance the cause of gender equality, such as allowing women to become reigning empresses, and married couples to use separate surnames.
Saturday’s vote had been described by analysts as a battle for the future of the LDP, which has governed Japan almost interrupted for the past seven decades. Its electoral dominance has been badly shaken, however, by a long-running scandal involving dozens of MPs who were found to have siphoned unreported profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds.
Takaichi, a foreign policy hawk, will also face a volatile security environment in east Asia, including the rise of a loose anti-western alliance comprising China, Russia and North Korea, and the redrawing of economic ties with the US under Donald Trump, who will reportedly visit Japan towards the end of the month.
Each of the LDP’s 295 lawmakers cast a vote in the first round of Saturday’s vote, with an equal number of votes distributed based on the preferences of just over 1 million grassroots members who had already cast their votes.
After none of the candidates secured an overall majority in the first round, Takaichi and Koizumi went head to head, with each of the LDP’s 295 lawmakers getting one vote and the membership’s share dropping to 47 votes, one for each of Japan’s prefectures.
AloJapan.com