Takaichi Sanae narrowly won the race for leadership of Japan’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Saturday, positioning her to become the first female prime minister in Japan’s history.
Japan is gearing up for a special election to replace Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, who announced his resignation in September after a few humiliating defeats for his party at the polls. Ishiba was also facing mounting public anxiety about alleged schemes to open Japan to mass migration from Africa.
Takaichi, 64, was always considered one of the top contenders in the swift and sudden race to succeed Ishiba, having finished second in the previous election. In the homestretch, her toughest opponent was Koizumi Shinjiro, an ally of Ishiba’s who would have become the youngest prime minister in Japanese history at 44 if he had won.
Takaichi won the first round of voting for LDP leadership with 183 votes, but Koizumi ran a close second with 164, triggering a runoff between the two. Takaichi won the runoff on Saturday with 185 votes to Koizumi’s 156, surprising many observers who thought the party would play it safer by choosing Koizumi.
Takaichi made some very precise political maneuvers to reposition herself as a slightly more moderate candidate than she was in the 2021 leadership race, but also more in tune with people-first populism. In some respects, her “moderation” was more a matter of the LDP shifting rightward and leaving her closer to the middle.
Takaichi’s platform in 2025 included tax cuts on gasoline, plus more subsidies for local governments and struggling taxpayers. She promised more pro-growth policies in tune with her mentor, the late Abe Shinzo, who was assassinated in July 2022 after leaving office. Her other major political inspiration was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom Takaichi often emulates in her wardrobe choices.
Bloomberg News on Monday speculated that a groundswell of popular support for Takaichi persuaded the LDP to choose her over Koizumi, who was far ahead in the predictive markets until a few days before the leadership election. Investors also seemed very pleased by Japan’s turn to its own Thatcherite “Iron Lady,” staging an epic rally in the Nikkei stock exchange on Monday morning.
Noting that Japanese stocks soared under Abe, but lagged badly after he was gone, Bloomberg said his disciple Takaichi won the election by promising to “administer a second dose of Abenomics.” She might even be able to perfect the formula, which was hindered under Abe by a reluctance to shake up Japanese corporate culture, but she will be struggling against the tides of popular discontent with high inflation.
The Diplomat recognized Takaichi’s shrewd populist appeal, comparing her to U.S. President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, France’s Marine Le Pen, and the fast-rising Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
“Takaichi’s rise reflects a broader global trend in which right-wing and far-right politicians are gaining ground as populist parties expand their influence. The trend is fueled by anti-globalism, immigration concerns, and prolonged economic stagnation,” The Diplomat sighed, clearly not excited by this populist trend.
Takaichi’s campaign was very much in tune with the Japanese public’s apprehension about mass migration, which is increasingly touted as the only solution for Japan’s demographic decline. Of course, international media characterizes this as Japan becoming more “anti-foreigner” or xenophobic, but the Japanese have always been more selective than most Western nations about immigration, and they feel events in Europe and America have given them good reason to worry about a replacement-level migration wave.
There is also mounting discomfort in Japan with a contingent of Kurdish refugees, very small by the standards of refugee populations in most countries at roughly 2,000 members, and with China’s influence on Japanese politics and business.
Takaichi stole some thunder from Sanseito, the small but fast-growing Japanese party that is most explicitly devoted to resisting globalism and migration. All five of the contenders for LDP leadership promised to safeguard Japanese citizenship, but Takaichi was the most committed to those promises – and she notably refused to insult Japanese citizens concerned about immigration as mindless xenophobes.
“If the public is genuinely feeling anxious, we must find a path to resolve those concerns. This is not about xenophobia or exclusion,” she said during her campaign.
“The foundation for coexisting with foreign nationals is that both sides respect rules. I wanted to show that I am taking the public’s concerns seriously,” she said.
One notable issue on which Takaichi moderated her position was Yasukuni Shrine, a centuries-old shrine in Tokyo devoted to soldiers who died in the service of Japan. Some of the officers from Imperial Japan who fought in World War II who are interred at the shrine have been classified as war criminals, so public visits by politicians to pay their respects have become controversial.
Takaichi was somewhat combative about her frequent visits to Yasukuni in the past, but in her 2025 campaign she took a lighter touch, declaring such visits to be a “private engagement” that should not be fodder for public debate. She said she still believes the shrine should be respected as a “central facility in our country for honoring the war dead,” and would like to “help create that environment,” but she did not make a commitment to visiting Yasukuni while she was the sitting prime minister.
Takaichi’s ascension to prime minister is not quite assured, although it is highly likely. LDP’s governing coalition lost its majorities in both houses of the national parliament under Ishiba, which is one of the major reasons he resigned.
Under the Japanese system, the lower house of the National Diet – known, like its American counterpart, as the House of Representatives – votes first for the prime minister, and has superior power to choose the PM if the upper house disagrees. LDP remains Japan’s dominant party, and it has been able to use the strength of its parliamentary coalition to secure the prime minister’s office in all but five years of the postwar era.
The final vote for prime minister is not usually held until the votes have been locked down behind the scenes, and since LDP is weaker than usual at the moment, some observers expect an unusually long delay between the LDP leadership election and the parliamentary vote.
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