TOKYO: Japan’s ruling party picked hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi as its head on Saturday, putting her on course to become the country’s first female prime minister in a move set to jolt investors and neighbours.
The Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan for almost all of the postwar era, elected Takaichi, 64, to regain trust from a public angered by rising prices and drawn to opposition groups promising stimulus and clampdowns on migrants.
A vote in parliament to choose a replacement for outgoing Shigeru Ishiba is expected on October 15. Takaichi is favoured as the ruling coalition has the largest number of seats.
INHERITS PARTY IN CRISIS
Takaichi, the only woman among the five LDP candidates, prevailed in a runoff against the more moderate Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, who was bidding to become Japan’s youngest modern leader.
A former economic security and internal affairs minister with an expansionary fiscal agenda for the world’s fourth-largest economy, Takaichi takes over a party in crisis.
Various other parties, including the expansionist Democratic Party for the People and the anti-immigration Sanseito, have been steadily luring voters, especially younger ones, away from the LDP.
The LDP and its coalition partner lost their majorities in both houses under Ishiba over the past year, triggering his resignation.
“Recently, I have heard harsh voices from across the country saying we don’t know what the LDP stands for anymore,” Takaichi said in a speech 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.”
Takaichi, who says her hero is Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister, offers a starker vision for change than Koizumi and is potentially more disruptive.
An advocate of late premier Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” strategy to boost the economy with aggressive spending and easy monetary policy, she has previously criticised the Bank of Japan’s interest rate increases.
Such a spending shift could spook investors in Japanese bonds, worried about one of the world’s biggest debt loads, and put downward pressure on the yen.
Naoya Hasegawa, chief bond strategist at Okasan Securities in Tokyo, said Takaichi’s election had weakened the chances of the BOJ raising rates this month, which markets had priced at around a 60% chance before the vote.
At a press conference after her victory, Takaichi laid out various plans to cut taxes and increase subsidies but said she understood “the importance of fiscal prudence”. The BOJ’s monetary policy must account for the fragility of the economy and wage growth, she said.
STICKING WITH TRUMP TRADE DEAL
Takaichi said she planned to honour an investment deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that lowered his punishing tariffs in return for Japanese taxpayer-backed investment, having previously mooted the possibility of redoing it.
The U.S. ambassador to Japan, George Glass, congratulated Takaichi, posting on X that he looked forward to strengthening the Japan-U.S. partnership “on every front”.
But her nationalistic positions – such as her regular visits to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead, viewed by some Asian countries as a symbol of its past militarism – may rile neighbours like South Korea and China.
South Korea will seek to “cooperate to maintain the positive momentum in South Korea-Japan relations”, President Lee Jae Myung’s office said in a statement.
Takaichi also favours revising Japan’s pacifist postwar constitution and suggested this year that Japan could form a “quasi-security alliance” with Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by China.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te welcomed her election, saying she was a “steadfast friend of Taiwan”.
“It is hoped that under the leadership of the new (LDP) President Takaichi, Taiwan and Japan can deepen their partnership in areas such as economic trade, security, and technological cooperation,” he said in a statement.
If elected prime minister, Takaichi said she would travel overseas more regularly than her predecessor to spread the word that “Japan is Back!”
“I have thrown away my own work-life balance and I will work, work, work,” Takaichi said in her victory speech.
WARNINGS FOR FOREIGNERS
Some of her supporters viewed her selection as a watershed in Japan’s male-dominated politics. Takaichi has made a bold pledge to lift the number of women in cabinet to a par with Nordic countries.
“The fact that a woman was chosen might be seen positively. I think it shows that Japan is truly starting to change and that message is getting across,” 30-year-old company worker Misato Kikuchi said outside Tokyo’s Shimbashi station.
However, her other socially conservative positions – such as opposing changes to allowing married couples to have separate surnames – make her more popular among men than women, opinion polls show.
Her conservative appeal, however, may help blunt the rise of Sanseito, which broke into the political mainstream in a July election, appealing to voters disillusioned with the LDP.
Echoing Sanseito’s warnings about foreigners, she kicked off her first official campaign speech with an anecdote about tourists reportedly kicking sacred deer in her hometown of Nara.
Takaichi, whose mother was a police officer, promised to clamp down on rule-breaking visitors and immigrants, who have come to Japan in record numbers in recent years.
“We hope she will … steer Japanese politics in an ‘anti-globalism’ direction to protect national interests and help the people regain prosperity and hope,” Sanseito said in a statement.
-Tim Kelly, John Geddie and Satoshi Sugiyama
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