Party member Sanae Takaichi speaks earlier than a runoff election throughout the Liberal Democratic Party’s management election on September 27, 2024 in Tokyo, Japan.
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With Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressing his intention to resign, the race to turn out to be the nation’s subsequent chief has been thrown vast open.
Various names have been bandied round to see who would succeed Ishiba, but two outstanding names have emerged: former financial safety minister Sanae Takaichi and present agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi.
Neither has formally introduced a run, but political danger consultancy Eurasia Group mentioned each are anticipated to enter the competition to exchange Ishiba.
A Nikkei opinion poll final month confirmed Takaichi main with 23% assist, whereas Koizumi had 22%. If elected, Takaichi would be the first woman to helm the world’s fourth-largest economic system.
When requested if Japan was prepared for a feminine prime minister, Tomohiko Taniguchi, former particular adviser to the cupboard underneath the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, advised CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that voters are extra prepared for a feminine chief than many assume.
“It’s just about time for Japan to have the first female prime minister, and I think it’s in line with the changes that have happened over the last 10, 15 years,” he famous, including that “female labor participation in Japan is bigger in number than it is in the United States.”
About 85% of Japanese girls aged between 25 and 54 years have been working, in contrast with 78% within the U.S, in response to the newest knowledge from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Takaichi ran towards Ishiba in final yr’s Liberal Democratic Party leadership race and led within the first spherical earlier than dropping within the runoff.
She later distanced herself from Ishiba’s authorities, not taking over any position within the cupboard and refusing his offer to chair the important thing LDP General Council.
End of a (brief) tenure
In a press convention Sunday, Ishiba said that he was resigning to take duty for a collection of election losses.
His departure comes as Japan faces a value of residing disaster, with rice prices reaching their highest fee of enhance in over 50 years in June.
Ishiba additionally pointed to the completion of a trade deal with the U.S., which set a 15% baseline tariff on all Japanese exports to the U.S., together with its auto sector.
“With Japan having signed the trade agreement and the president having signed the executive order, we have passed a key hurdle,” Ishiba mentioned, according to Reuters. “I would like to pass the baton to the next generation.”
His resignation additionally ends a brief stint that noticed the ruling LDP and junior coalition associate Komeito lose their majority in each Japan’s upper and lower houses of parliament.
Takaichi vs Koizumi
Takaichi is an “apostle of Abenomics”, in response to Eurasia Group, a reference to the financial insurance policies of Abe, which espoused large-scale financial coverage easing, fiscal spending and structural reforms.
“Investors will closely watch Takaichi’s electoral prospects because of her previous pointed criticism of the Bank of Japan’s plans to raise interest rates, and her support for larger fiscal stimulus,” the observe added.
The BOJ ended its detrimental rate of interest regime in March 2024 and most just lately kept rates at 0.5%. However, forward of the LDP management contest final October, Takaichi had mentioned that the BOJ’s hikes were “too early.”
She can be in favor of revising Japan’s pacifist structure, particularly Article 9, which renounced Japan’s proper to wage battle.
Japanese Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on the 2025 APEC Food Security Ministers’ Meeting at Songdo Convensia in Incheon, South Korea, on August 10, 2025.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
By distinction, Koizumi has been much less outspoken on coverage, but the son of former Japanese chief Junichiro Koizumi rose to prominence after taking up as farm minister and managing the rice crisis in Japan.
Jesper Koll, skilled director at monetary companies agency Monex Group mentioned that Takaichi has “strong policy ideas and, more importantly, a strong team of ‘enforcers’ from within both the LDP and the elite bureaucracy.”
While the mainstream LDP could not like her concepts, she scores effectively amongst LDP’s elite who admire her thoroughness and willingness to interact, argue and get issues finished, mentioned Koll, who labeled her concepts “radical.”
In distinction, Koll mentioned, Koizumi is a protected pair of arms. “Because he is fundamentally vacuous on policy, the LDP old-guard feels confident he won’t upstage their entrenched agenda on, for example, agricultural policy or rural vested interest protection.”
He could additionally simply construct a compromise with the opposition events within the decrease home to get their assist to be the prime minister.
Or another person?
Despite the LDP-Komeito being Japan’s governing coalition, the winner of the LDP management race could not mechanically turn out to be prime minister because the Lower House makes the ultimate alternative.
Because the LDP misplaced its majority within the chamber, all of the opposition lawmakers could, if united behind a single candidate, select the subsequent prime minister.
The LDP and Komeito have a mixed 220 seats within the 465-seat Lower House. But this situation is unlikely, Eurasia analysts mentioned, provided that the LDP, with its 196 seats, remains to be the biggest voting bloc within the Lower House.