Japan LDP leadership Vote May Bring First Woman Or Youngest Prime Minister

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will hold a leadership vote on Saturday that could result in the country’s first woman prime minister or its youngest leader in the modern era, according to Reuters.

Five candidates are vying to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is stepping down after a series of electoral defeats that cost the LDP its majorities in both houses of parliament. The party’s new leader is likely to become prime minister because the LDP is the largest group in parliament, but that outcome is not assured given the party’s weakened position, Reuters reported.

The front-runners are conservative nationalist Sanae Takaichi, 64; Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, 64; and Farm Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, the son of former premier Junichiro Koizumi. Opinion polls suggest Takaichi and Koizumi are the strongest candidates, although Hayashi remains in contention.

Takaichi, an ally of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has pledged aggressive government spending intended to double the size of the economy within a decade through heavy state investment in new technologies, infrastructure, food production and other areas of economic security.

Reuters reported that she has raised the possibility of renegotiating an investment deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, a pact in which Japan agreed to invest $550 billion in the United States in return for lower tariffs on automobiles and other Japanese products. Critics say her spending plans could spook investors in an economy with one of the world’s biggest debt loads.

Koizumi and Hayashi have defended the $550 billion agreement with Washington. Koizumi and the other candidates say they would trim taxes to help households cope with rising living costs but otherwise would hew more closely to Ishiba’s more restrained economic approach.

The internal balance of power in the LDP may determine the outcome. According to an Asahi newspaper report, Koizumi leads among the 295 LDP lawmakers who will vote for the party leader, followed by Hayashi and Takaichi. A Nippon Television survey found Takaichi ahead among rank-and-file party members, whose votes carry an equal number in the first round. If the contest proceeds to a second round, as seems likely, the influence of grassroots members would fall to 47, shifting the dynamics of the vote.

Observers say the leadership fight centres on how to renew the party. “Koizumi and Takaichi offer two quite different approaches to that renewal,” Tina Burrett, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, said. She added that Koizumi is seen as someone who could forge consensus with other parties, while Takaichi would shake up “a world of rather grey politicians.”

Dissatisfaction with the LDP is driving many voters, especially disillusioned younger people, towards opposition parties, including an upstart anti-immigrant far-right party, the campaign environment suggests.

Whoever wins will face immediate foreign and domestic tests. Reuters has reported that one of the winner’s first acts as premier would likely be hosting President Trump in Tokyo at the end of October. Domestically, the new leader must rejuvenate a party increasingly seen as out of touch with voters. “There’s every possibility that we’ll be returning to this issue of yet another election for the leadership of the country before too long,” James Brown, a politics professor at Temple University in Tokyo, said.

(With inputs from Reuters)