TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s ruling party announced Tuesday that it is vote on 27 September to elect its new leader after Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas surprising announcement of his resignation.
The internal elections must be held by the end of September, the end of Kishida’s three-year term. Only the party’s parliamentarians and its 1.1 million dues-paying members will take part in the election. The winner will become leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and the country’s prime minister, as the party and its smaller coalition partner control Japan’s bicameral parliament.
Last week, Kishida – who took office in October 2021 – said he was withdrawing from the race to pave the way for a new leader, to form a united LDP, to make a fresh start and to regain public trust, which has been badly damaged by widespread corruption in the party. scandalwhich caused his approval ratings to fall below 20%.
Within days of the prime minister’s statement, local media speculated about nearly a dozen possible candidates, and some of them have already expressed interest in taking the lead of a party desperate for public support.
A younger lawmaker, 49-year-old former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi, was the first to announce his candidacy on Monday. Others whose names have been floated as possible candidates include 43-year-old former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi, three of the party’s female veterans, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi and former Gender Equality Minister Seiko Noda, as well as previous runners-up, Digital Minister Taro Kono and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is a perennial favorite among the general public.
Each candidate needs the support of 20 party MPs to run, and it usually takes time to mobilise them.
LDP election committee chairman Ichiro Aisawa said on Tuesday that his party was taking seriously the public’s loss of trust due to the scandals and that it had set a campaign period of 15 days, rather than the usual 12, starting on Sept. 12 to give voters more time to consider the candidates’ visions and policies. He also urged potential candidates to run their campaigns as economically as possible and “take into account public criticism of money and politics.”
Voters will cast their ballots in a system that divides power between the party’s elected representatives and its membership at large, with each group receiving 50% of the vote.
The scandal that rocked the LDP revolved around unreported political donations collected through ticket sales to party events. The scandal involved more than 80 LDP lawmakers, most of whom belonged to a large party faction previously controlled by assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
