TRUMP VISIT
The clock is ticking for Takaichi to become Japan’s fifth prime minister in as many years with US President Donald Trump due to visit Japan at the end of October.
Details of Washington and Tokyo’s trade deal remain unresolved and Trump – who had warm relations with Abe in his first term – wants Japan to stop Russian energy imports and boost defence spending.
The LDP’s coalition partner of 26 years, the Komeito party, pulled the plug on their alliance on Oct 10.
Komeito said that the LDP has failed to tighten rules on party funding following a damaging slush fund scandal involving dodgy payments of millions of dollars.
The LDP this week began talks on forming a new coalition with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) instead.
The two parties would be two seats short of a majority but the alliance would still likely ensure that Takaichi succeeds in becoming premier.
This is because while Takaichi needs support from a majority of MPs to become premier, in a second-round two-way runoff she only needs more than the other person.
A spanner in the works could be if opposition parties agreed on a rival candidate but talks on this this week appeared to make little headway.
“I believe we made progress on advancing the sense of mutual trust because (LDP) President Takaichi and I were very close in many areas, including our views on current affairs and the political philosophy of the country,” Fumitake Fujita, co-head of the JIP, said Thursday.
However, he also acknowledged that there were big policy differences in specific areas, such as a JIP proposal to ban corporate political donations.
More talks were due to take place on Friday.
AloJapan.com