By TOKYO, Oct 4 (AfrikTimes) – Japan’s ruling party picked conservative nationalist Sanae Takaichi as its new head on Saturday, putting her on course to become the country’s first female prime minister.
The Liberal Democratic Party elected Takaichi, 64, to regain trust from a public angered by rising prices and drawn to opposition groups promising big stimulus and clampdowns on foreigners.
A parliamentary vote to formally select a new prime minister to replace Shigeru Ishiba is expected to be held on October 15.
PARTY IN CRISIS
The new LDP president is likely to succeed Shigeru Ishiba as leader of the world’s fourth-biggest economy because the party, which has governed Japan for almost all the postwar period, is the biggest in parliament. But this is not assured as the party and its coalition partner lost their majorities in both houses under Ishiba in the past year.
Takaichi, the only woman among the five LDP candidates, beat a challenge from the more moderate Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, who was bidding to become the country’s youngest leader in the modern era.
A former internal affairs minister with an expansionary economic agenda, Takaichi inherits a party in crisis. Various other parties, including the fiscally expansionist Democratic Party for the People and the anti-immigration Sanseito have been steadily luring voters, especially younger ones, away from the LDP.
“Recently, I have heard harsh voices from across the country saying we don’t know what the LDP stands for anymore,” said Takaichi in her speech before the second-round vote.
Sanae Takaichi stands as she was chosen as the new leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party during the party’s leadership election in Tokyo, Japan.
Takaichi, who says her hero is Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister, offered a starker vision for change than Koizumi and is potentially more disruptive. An advocate of late premier Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” strategy to jolt the economy with aggressive spending and easy monetary policy, she has previously criticised the Bank of Japan’s interest rate increases. Such a policy shift could spook investors worried about one of the world’s biggest debt loads.
Takaichi has also raised the possibility of redoing an investment deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that lowered his punishing tariffs in return for Japanese taxpayer-backed investment.
Takaichi’s conservative and nationalistic views could strain relations with Japan’s Asian neighbours. Her frequent visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan’s war dead and is seen by South Korea and China as a reminder of its wartime aggression, have long drawn criticism abroad.
She 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.
If confirmed as prime minister, Takaichi vowed to strengthen Japan’s global presence and “travel overseas more regularly than my predecessor to tell the world that Japan is back.”
Takaichi is expected to hold a press conference around 0900 GMT.
