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On September 27, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will vote for its new leader, with the winner of the contest replacing the incumbent Kishida Fumio as Prime Minister of Japan. The LDP holds these internal elections every three years; while leaders are permitted to serve three terms, Kishida, who has been dogged by low approval ratings for most of his time in office, is stepping down after just one.

With the LDP facing a long-term slump in the polls and no incumbent in the race, the LDP’s leadership contest has become a wide-open contest. Nine candidates are in the running, the largest number since the requirement for candidates to collect 20 nominations from their party colleagues was created in 1972. Among the candidates are both first-time hopefuls and veterans of prior leadership campaigns, including two candidates who ran against Kishida in 2021 – Kōno Tarō and Takaichi Sanae.

The outcome of this election will be very important for Japan, not only because the new Prime Minister will immediately face a large number of serious challenges both domestically and internationally, but because there are actually quite significant differences between the candidates in how they would approach many of those challenges. While economic policy is the most obvious battleground – with some candidates advocating for expansionary monetary policy and promising to use government spending to spur growth, while others push for more hawkish fiscal policies and hope that market reforms will bring growth instead – there are many other points of disagreement, from how to approach security policy and fund future defence spending, to social issues such as the right of married couples to use separate surnames and reforms that would permit women to become Emperor.

Looming over the contest are two major upcoming elections. The first is Japan’s own General Election, which any new LDP leader is likely to call fairly quickly after taking office. The last election was held in October 2021, shortly after Kishida became Prime Minister. This means that Japanese voters have not had a chance to express themselves at the ballot box since skyrocketing consumer prices and massive, long-running scandals – most notably over the LDP’s connections to the Unification Church, and over the use of illegal slush funds and under-reported financial kick-backs by party factions – seriously undermined approval ratings for the government. Any new LDP leader will be hoping to have at least some degree of “honeymoon period” with voters that delivers a polling boost during which an election can be held, but LDP lawmakers will be considering which prospective leaders are most likely to earn public approval and save as many of the party’s seats as possible.

The second election on the horizon, however, is beyond Japanese lawmakers’ control: the U.S. Presidential election in November will decide who will lead Japan’s most important ally, and its outcome will have immense consequences for Japan in terms of both security and trade. While foreign policy is rarely top of mind in these kinds of internal election, LDP members will be aware that they are choosing a leader who will have to work directly with either Harris or Trump, and there is a general sense that, especially in the event of a second Trump administration becoming a reality, much of how Japan fares may rest on the new leader’s ability to build a personal rapport with their opposite number in Washington.

The Election System

In the first round of voting, each of the LDP’s 368 lawmakers will have one vote, with a further 368 ballots distributed according to the votes of the party’s 1.05 million members around the country, for a total of 736 votes. The deadline for party members’ votes is September 26, with their votes being tabulated and distributed in time for the election the following day.

Unless one candidate wins more than 50% of the votes in this first round, which is extremely unlikely, a run-off election will be held on the same day between the top two candidates. In this run-off, all lawmakers still have one vote (368), but the ballots of ordinary members will be represented instead by a representative for each of the 47 prefectures, who will cast their vote according to which of the run-off candidates received the most support in their prefecture. The 415 votes in the second round are therefore heavily weighted towards lawmakers’ preferences. To the extent that ordinary party members’ ballots count at all in the second round, they are weighted towards rural prefectures, but this disparity would only influence the outcome in an extremely tight race.

The Polls

Although major news agencies have conducted various polls of the LDP’s leadership race, the results of these polls have to be understood as broad estimates rather than precise forecasts. This is because polling organisations cannot directly target the 1.05m LDP members who are actually able to vote in this election. Instead, polls generally focus either on broad public support for each candidate, or on the preferences of voters who claim to be LDP supporters (but of course, may not actually be party members). This is important because, while the LDP has historically had a very broad base of support within Japanese society, the party’s membership has declined sharply in recent decades – a process of hollowing-out which generally leaves the remaining membership with notably more extreme positions on key issues than the wider electorate. This probably favours more hardline candidates in the party ballot, which will be crucial to deciding who goes forward to the run-off election, and may also mean that polling underestimates the support for such candidates somewhat, since most of the polling is of ordinary voters, not strictly of party members.

With this caveat in mind, the last polls ahead of polling day on September 26 suggested that three candidates have pulled far ahead of the pack in terms of support among party members. Ishiba Shigeru appears to have a strong lead in the party ballot, followed by Koizumi Shinjiro and Takaichi Sanae. All major polls in the past few weeks agree that this is the top three, with no other candidates attracting especially significant support from party members. With these three candidates likely to attract the lion’s share of the party member ballots between them, any of the remaining six candidates would have to command a huge number of votes from their Diet colleagues to hope to proceed to the run-off round.

Polling of the lawmakers is, unsurprisingly, also very uncertain. Newspaper companies contact lawmakers and ask who they will vote for during the campaign, but many lawmakers decline to answer, so it’s important not to over-interpret these polls. Among those who declared their support in a Yomiuri Shimbun poll on September 25, Koizumi was in the lead (54 declared supporters), followed by Kobayashi Takayuki (42 supporters) and Hayashi Yoshimasa (39). The other two front-runners in the party member ballot, Takaichi and Ishiba, had 31 and 28 declared supporters respectively. However, 70 lawmakers were undecided, or did not respond to the survey, so the overall disposition of the party votes – which is likely to be crucial to deciding which of the top three candidates go on to the run-off round – remains unknown as we head into the election.

The Frontrunners

Koizumi Shinjiro (43)

District: Kanazawa 11 (Elected 5 times)

The youngest of the candidates in this election, Koizumi is also by far the most high-profile politician of his generation. Son of former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō, he was elected to his father’s former parliamentary seat in 2009, becoming the fourth generation of the Koizumi political dynasty. He served as Environment Minister in Abe Shinzō’s cabinet from 2019 to 2021, and is currently chairperson of the Diet’s national security committee. Koizumi’s personal profile matches his status as LDP royalty; handsome and photogenic, he was educated overseas (completing his Masters degree at Columbia University), and is married to celebrity TV announcer Takigawa Christel.

The polls suggest that Koizumi is well-liked among ordinary LDP members, and that should not be dismissed as merely a result of his famous name and high profile. Koizumi has also put in the work over the years, turning up to campaign for colleagues’ elections up and down the country and generally drawing large crowds for his speeches and rallies on their behalf. That has put him in good stead with his Diet colleagues – where he also enjoys the support of some LDP grandees with significant remaining influence in the party – but has also directly introduced him in front of party members all over the country as a hard worker who will turn up where he is needed. It also shouldn’t be overlooked that at 43, Koizumi has by far the best claim to being the “generational change” candidate – with the exception of the less well-known Kobayashi Takayuki, every other candidate in the election is in their 60s or 70s. Youth is likely to be an advantage as lawmakers consider who is best placed to convince the electorate that the LDP has turned over an entirely new leaf.

Although strong support from both lawmakers and party members makes Koizumi very likely to go forward to the run-off election, there are significant weaknesses to his candidacy that have not escaped notice. One is simply his lack of experience; his only cabinet experience is a two-year stint in the Environment Ministry, where he was most notable for telling reporters he wanted to make combatting climate change “sexy” – an odd choice of words that was widely mocked and seen as evidence of his inexperience. He has been dogged by suggestions that he is something of a lightweight on matters of policy in general, and it can be quite difficult to pin down what he actually stands for on various key issues, as he tends to fall back on neat answers about investigating issues and listening to the public rather than taking a strong position on many topics. Generally, however, he is seen as a neoliberal economic reformer who believes that deregulation can drive economic growth. During the campaign, he made comments to the effect that firing employees is too difficult in Japan – statements widely seen as further proof of his inexperience, as they made a topic on which his views are unpopular into a major issue in the election.

Despite concerns about his inexperience (and occasional gaffes), Koizumi remains the likely frontrunner in the election; assuming he moves on to the run-off election, lawmakers may well find him a more palatable option than Ishiba, who is seen as something of an outsider, or Takaichi, who is seen as too hardline. However, a potential Koizumi administration would undoubtedly face questions over who is really in charge, and a risk that internal court intrigues over control of the neophyte Prime Minister’s policy agenda and direction could deepen rifts within the party. Much of that could be settled, however, if Koizumi proves effective in wielding his father’s most effective political weapon: electoral success. Delivering a solid result in an early election would help to silence potential criticisms of his inexperience and solidify a cadre of loyalists around him.

* * *

Takaichi Sanae (63)

District: Nara 2 (Elected 9 times)

Once seen as the anointed political heir to Abe Shinzō, Takaichi has faced a number of setbacks since her patron’s assassination in 2022 – including the forced dissolution of Abe’s faction in the party, which was deeply embroiled in the slush fund scandal. Nonetheless, she has effectively become the public figurehead of the party’s somewhat embattled right-wing, and is extremely popular among more right-wing voters, who see her as continuing Abe’s legacy (which Kishida is generally seen to have abandoned, leading him to be especially unpopular with this segment of the population). She is deeply conservative on social policy, hawkish on security and diplomacy, and favours continuation of Abenomics-style policies that pursue economic growth through monetary policy and fiscal spending. Like Abe, she is also no fan of the media; as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications in 2016, she threatened to suspend the broadcast licenses of media who aired politically biased content.

While in all of these regards Takaichi’s image as someone carrying forward Abe’s legacy is justified, it could be argued that she most closely resembles Abe in his first stint as Prime Minister in 2006-2007 – a disastrous year in office caused largely by his focus on right-wing bugbears like historical revisionism, at the expense of more salient issues like the economy. When Abe returned to power in 2012 it was at a much more moderate figure, allowing his policy agenda to be driven by the public’s priorities and seemingly content to work towards his own deeply-held desires, such as constitutional reform, as long-term goals. Takaichi’s track record does not suggest that she has learned a similar degree of moderation, and LDP members with long memories may fear that excessive focus on hardline right-wing obsessions will be anathema to a public much more concerned with cost-of-living issues.

Nonetheless, lawmakers will have taken note of Takaichi’s popularity with the party membership, and she may also benefit from political manoeuvring by LDP powerbrokers, many of whom are keen to keep Ishiba, in particular, out of the leadership. Her hardline conservative positions may even appeal to some members who associate Kishida’s more centre-right stances with the party’s polling decline. However, of all the candidates, Takaichi seems most likely to struggle to present herself to voters as a clean break from the scandals that have dogged the LDP’s approval ratings. Fourteen of the twenty lawmakers who nominated Takaichi for the leadership race were former members of the Abe Faction, which was dissolved in the wake of the financial kickbacks scandal; no other candidate accepted nominations from more than three or four former Abe Faction members. Thirteen of her nominators were reprimanded for failing to properly report their political finances, with six of them being officially punished by the party for their role in the scandal. While Takaichi herself was not implicated in any misconduct, lawmakers will be conscious that one of the most important tasks for the new leader will be convincing voters that they represent genuine change and reform at the top of the party – and Takaichi’s connections to so many of the perpetrators may make it impossible for the party to put the financial scandal behind itself as it faces the upcoming election.

* * *

Ishiba Shigeru (67)

District: Tottori 1 (Elected 12 times)

Ishiba is a veteran of many LDP leadership campaigns – this will be his fifth shot at the party’s top job and, he says, his final bid for the role. That background itself gives a hint as to Ishiba’s position within the party. He is, to some extent, a perennial outsider; he was one of the LDP members who defected to create the reform-focused Japan Renewal Party in the 1990s, but more importantly to his current status, was also one of the few hold-outs who refused to accept the policy consensus of the Abe era, reportedly declining a number of cabinet positions during that time. This status creates an unusual bifurcation in support for Ishiba; he is generally seen as unpopular among his Diet colleagues, but remains immensely popular with the party’s general membership, with whom he has a reputation for being principled, honest, and approachable. That image has probably only been enhanced by being one of the only candidates who does not seem keen to put a lid on discussions of the party’s financial scandals; Ishiba has promised further reforms to restore public trust, and even raised the possibility of withdrawing the LDP’s endorsement from candidates who failed to properly report their political income.

That last statement – made in the announcement speech for his candidacy – really sums up both Ishiba’s strength and his weakness. It shows why he is one of the few people that voters believe is genuine in his pursuit of reform and transparency, rather than merely paying lip service to the idea and hoping the public eventually forgets the scandal. Equally, however, it has probably cost him any chance at gaining the votes of almost 100 lawmakers who would be at risk of losing the LDP’s endorsement if such a policy were enacted. A statement like this prioritises principle over realpolitik – a defining aspect of Ishiba’s career, but arguably one which has consistently held him back from any chance at the top job. If he does reach the run-off election on the strength of his support from party members, senior LDP figures such as Asō Tarō will likely try to secure blocks of votes for whoever he faces as an opponent. There remains an outside possibility that lawmakers will take note of his public popularity and vote for him in the hopes that he will deliver electoral salvation – this “Break Glass for Ishiba” emergency option has been suggested in the past when LDP polling has slumped, but has yet to become a reality.

In policy terms, Ishiba is generally seen as moderate on economic issues and has been courting Kishida’s former supporters with a pledge to largely continue his economic policy program. His key focus, outside of political reforms, is likely to be on social security reforms, a field where he sees major change being needed to ensure that pensions and care systems remain reliable despite Japan’s demographic change. Although he is famously a security “otaku” with a deep interest in military issues, he is also moderate on many security and foreign affairs issues, favouring developing a constructive relationship with China where possible, but also advocating for a rethinking of Japan’s security relationship with the United States into more of an equal partnership, with Japan taking more control and responsibility of its own security. An Ishiba-led administration would likely be the most radical in many regards that Japan has seen in decades – but the perennial outsider becoming party leader would also deeply divide the LDP itself.

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The Challengers

Kōno Tarō (61)

District: Kanagawa 15 (Elected 9 times)

For a long time, Kōno was widely seen as a front-runner for the LDP’s leadership. He lost out in 2021 after a back-room bargain was struck that threw much of Takaichi’s support in that election behind Kishida instead, but had proved a popular candidate nonetheless. A prolific social media user, he had a knack for promoting eye-catching reforms – especially digital reforms aimed at bringing Japanese bureaucracy into the 21st century – that kept him in the public eye.

However, Kōno has struggled to attract support in the crowded field of this election, even despite the endorsement of Asō Tarō – leader of the only officially remaining faction in the party. His currency among voters and party members has been badly tarnished by being the minister in charge of the MyNumber system when a number of problems related to data security were revealed. The MyNumber system is broadly unpopular, and to some extent Kōno may have become a scapegoat for public dissatisfaction with the system. He is now very unlikely to move forward to the run-off election.

In policy terms, Kōno is arguably closest to Koizumi on many issues; he is a neoliberal reformer who advocates for tighter fiscal discipline, and using deregulation to drive economic growth, as well as encouraging more innovative energy policy to support industries that rely on high energy usage such as data centres.

* * *

Motegi Toshimitsu (68)

District: Ibaraki 5 (Elected 10 times)

Motegi is a party heavyweight, perhaps the most experienced and influential of the candidates in the election – as current Secretary-General of the party, he had to temporarily hand over the duties of his office to Kishida so that the campaign could run fairly. His experience is a core part of his campaign for the leadership; he emphasises that he led trade negotiations with the Trump administration in 2019, directly addressing concerns that the new leader needs to be capable of dealing with a potentially volatile second Trump administration.

This argument does not seem to have swayed party members, however, with Motegi polling near the bottom of the pack. Despite many high-profile ministerial positions, his history is more as a back-room policy expert than as a front-line retail politician, which likely limits his appeal to rank-and-file members. He enjoys a reasonable level of support from his Diet colleagues, but almost certainly not enough to overcome his weakness in the membership vote and put him through to the run-off.

Although significantly less hardline than Takaichi in most respects, Motegi is also arguably in the conservative / Abe-ist lane of the election, with his economic policies in particular being generally in line with the Abenomics ideas of driving growth through spending – although he also promotes encouragement of start-up businesses and improved productivity as key ways to improve economic growth.

* * *

Hayashi Yoshimasa (63)

District: Yamaguchi 3 (Elected once; formerly 5-term Upper House member)

Hayashi is contesting this election in an unusual lane – he is, in essence, the Kishida continuity candidate, with almost all of his support coming from former members of the Kishida faction. Given that Kishida himself is stepping down due to unpopularity, this is understandably a very challenging position from which to mount a challenge, and Hayashi is likely to struggle with both party member votes and with attracting votes from outside the former Kishida faction.

Like Motegi, Hayashi has also been pointing to his experience as a benefit in the election – he is currently Chief Cabinet Secretary, and has previously held a number of key cabinet positions. Like Ishiba, he proposes to largely continue Kishida’s moderate fiscal policy. Lacking any serious support among party members, he is unlikely to move to the run-off, so his most significant impact on the election may be that he offers an alternative to supporters of Kishida’s platform who are considering voting for Ishiba – potentially costing the latter a place in the run-off in the event of a tight race.

* * *

Katō Katsunobu (68)

District: Okayama 5 (Elected 7 times)

Like Takaichi, Katō is widely seen as a protégé of Abe Shinzō, having served in a number of roles in his cabinet. His campaign has focused almost entirely on economic goals, and he has attempted to present himself as carrying forward the ideas and goals of Abenomics. Like most of the candidates in this “Abe-ist” lane, he is therefore a proponent of using fiscal spending to drive growth, but he specifically emphasises wage growth as being crucial, and claims that his economic plan will double citizens’ incomes within 10 to 15 years.

Perhaps more than any other candidate, Katō suffers from lack of public profile – although in his case it comes despite a number of high-profile positions, including being Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. He polls very poorly among party members, and doesn’t appear to have especially strong support among lawmakers. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that the lane he is running in is very crowded, and includes powerful party figures such as Motegi as well as one of the front-runners, Takaichi.

* * *

Kamikawa Yokō (71)

District: Shizuoka 1 (Elected 7 times)

At 71, Kamikawa is the oldest candidate in the race, one of only two women. She has a wealth of cabinet experience, having served as Justice Minister under Abe and Suga, and now as Foreign Minister under Kishida. She was encouraged to run for the presidency by Kishida after he announced his decision to resign in August; however, much of her support from the Kishida faction faded after Hayashi announced his candidacy. Like Hayashi, she is essentially a “Kishida continuity” candidate, a tough enough proposition even without a more successful competitor in the same lane.

Kamikawa subsequently struggled to assemble the 20 nominations needed to enter the race, eventually receiving a number from lawmakers in the Aso faction at the last minute in what may have been a strategic decision by Aso and his allies. This suggests a very low ceiling for Kamikawa’s support in the election itself, especially as she lacks any significant backing from the party membership in the polls.

* * *

Kobayashi Takayuki (49)

District: Chiba 2 (Elected 4 times)

The second youngest candidate in the race, Kobayashi is the only candidate to have entered politics during the Abe era, being elected for the first time alongside Abe’s return to power in 2012 (Koizumi, who is six years younger, was elected in 2009 – one of only four new LDP lawmakers to enter the Diet in that election, at which the party suffered a historic defeat). Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is generally an adherent of Abenomics, with economic policies very similar to those proposed by Takaichi and Motegi – achieving growth through fiscal spending and soft monetary policy.

He appears to be popular among lawmakers, having the second-largest share of support in the Yomiuri Shimbun’s poll on September 25 (42 supporters to Koizumi’s 54), but has little support among regular party members. As a young, clean-cut conservative and Abe-ist who has avoided being associated with scandal, he presents an alternative to Takaichi that many of his lawmaker colleagues may find more palatable – especially with a looming election at the front of their minds. However, Takaichi’s dominance of support from right-wing party members likely ensures that she will finish ahead of him even if he earns more votes from lawmakers, and makes it extremely unlikely that he will proceed to the run-off election.