Japan’s ruling party elects Sanae Takaichi as new leader, likely to become first female PM

Sai Takishi is set to become Japan’s new uh and first female prime minister. She won this Saturday’s leadership race in the ruling party to replace outgoing Shiguru Ishiba. Takichi is a hardline conservative security hawk and as prime minister, she will take helm of the world’s fourth largest economy at a time of unusual political instability. For more, let’s speak to Tokyo based journalist James Sims. Salo, James. Um, how did Takichi uh win today’s party leadership race? Right. This was actually her third time in running for the presidency of the LDP, which usually carries the premiership. So after her second loss, she actually worked to build up her support, especially among the local LDP chapters. And that was actually the critical difference in her winning and losing. Uh so the vote the overall vote tally was very close between Takichi and farm minister Ju Shinjo Quisami. Uh she had 149 to his 145 but in the final tally um she got much more of the uh local regional votes from the party members. Yeah. And after winning she held it as a new era. Any idea what Japan is in store for? Well, I think um one one obvious thing is that she’s the first female uh leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and most likely uh she will be the first female prime minister of Japan. And so Japan has been very behind just in terms of sort of gender equality and also women in the workforce in leadership positions in both politics and business. And so in terms of the new area, Nara I her main uh focus is on trying to rebuild support for the party. Uh the Japanese are very upset with the uh very high inflation as well as a stagnant wages. And so that is one of the main reasons that the party has lost the last two elections and that eventually forced uh this new uh leadership election. The Japanese public is ready for a female leader. I think so. and she’s uh you know fairly conservative and so the party supporters um are you know fairly conservative and they voted for her and so one of the reasons that the party has lost the last two major national elections is that uh they’ve lost votes to other conservative parties and so if you look at the support among those conservative parties they their support for her was much stronger so I mean that potentially will help uh the ruling party in terms of gaining uh voters who have left. But she only has about two years because uh the term for the lower house is only for another 3 years, but usually after you’re only down to about one year, they start talking about the election. So, she has about maybe two years to try to turn things around to try to uh tamp inflation uh as well as to get wages up to overcome the fairly high inflation. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you just alluded it to it, James, but what are the biggest challenges uh facing her moving forward? So, obviously, it’s just the economy. Um, as in many countries in the industrialized west, the economy is one of the major factors. Um, there is a bit on immigration and also foreign visitors. But I think that’s been sort of a distraction. uh one of the very far-right sort of nationalist parties has used uh the the bogeyman of foreigners as a way to try to attract party voters. But I think that the main focus she will have to focus on is on the economy to get inflation down and to get wages up. Obviously, she’s also facing a very uh difficult Northeast Asian uh security situation and she will also have to deal with a murial uh president in the United States in terms of trade policy and also investment policy. So, um hopefully in terms of the the cabin that she will put together, she will bring in some people who are uh well-versed in those issues on national security and foreign policy to try to make up for. I think she’s lacking those sort of um I think strong points. She’s focused been more focused on domestic policy. She was the the head of the party uh policy group um and she was also the minister of internal affairs. So hopefully she will bring in people that will be able to deal with some of these more vexing uh foreign policy issues. James, thank you very much.

Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected and staunchly conservative head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is expected to become Japan’s first woman prime minister. She won the leadership of Japan’s ruling party on Saturday (October 4). James Simms, a journalist based in Tokyo, tells us more.
#Japan #Asia #Takaichi

🔔 Subscribe to France 24 now: https://f24.my/YTen
🔴 LIVE – Watch FRANCE 24 English 24/7 here: https://f24.my/YTliveEN

🌍 Read the latest International News and Top Stories: https://www.france24.com/en/

Like us on Facebook: https://f24.my/FBen
Follow us on X: https://f24.my/Xen
Bluesky: https://f24.my/BSen and Threads: https://f24.my/THen
Browse the news in pictures on Instagram: https://f24.my/IGen
Discover our TikTok videos: https://f24.my/TKen
Get the latest top stories on Telegram: https://f24.my/TGen

34 comments

  1. We did not choose her because of her gender.
    Her policy is very important.
    😂 Inflation ! Less than 2% .

  2. The present Government and industry want cheap labours that means keeping wages very low. There are plenty of unemployed people in Japan, yet companies want cheap immigrants. This is not good for the Japanese economy.
    Those immigrants are not skilled either with inadequately. We cannot keep Japanese standards for products. We have big problems with immigrants without morals committed crimes whose rates are much higher than the Japanese.

  10. She is a hardline conservative… how much change do you expect ? The fact that she is a first female leader is just a distraction only

  11. Honestly, I have no idea. The party hasn’t changed, and she hasn’t done anything as president yet. All we can do is keep working hard and uphold the Japanese spirit to make our country stronger.

  12. Please don't force the EU's failed immigration policies on Japan. We have chosen someone who can tackle immigration issues from a Japanese perspective.

  15. communistparty of the unitedstates of america.
    venonafile. venonaProject.
    NATO連合国は、黙ってろよ。

  16. 約束守らない政治資金規正法違反の西村康稔と約束守らない茂木敏充を高市が閣僚入りさせたら自民党は解党に成る～日本遺族会会員～中国江蘇省無錫市名誉市民～尾形大作

  17. Takaichi Sanae of LDP
    wrote about her nasty
    experience in her own book that she had sex with many young men as a play when she was young.
    She has no morality
    nor dignity.
    She is really suitable
    for a politician of beautiful Japan.

  18. 今回の選挙は男とか女とか関係ないし、移民問題は表を集めるための客寄せパンダ的な政策と言ってるけど、実際に問題が起こってるからそれを争点にあげているだけだ。日本のメディアもそうだけどこのメディアの言ってることもかなりズレている。

  20. 日本の多くの国民は高市さんを支持しています。
    ニューメディアを通じて本当の情報を手に入れた結果です。
    オールドメディアは今も偏向報道を行い続けていますが国民は真実に気付き始めました。

  21. In a few years, we Japanese will likely become a member of NATO in order to stand against those countries in Asia that take pleasure in killing people.

  22. "Ideologically, Sohei Kamiya of the Sanseitō party is the true successor to Shinzo Abe.
    A departure from the postwar regime.
    Japanese people first."

  24. The reason people chose Sanae Takaichi was that they believed she was the only person
    who could truly change Japan. For most people, the fact that she is a woman –
    rather than a man – was never an issue at all.

  26. She was chosen because she is a patriot. Not because she is a female.
    ALSO, WHY JAPAN'S GENDER GAP IS SO LOW IS THE ORGANIZATION THAT GIVES INFO FROM JAPAN IS USUALLY A HARD CORE ANTI-JAPAN LEFT-WING…

  29. It does not matter who pretends to be Japan's Prime Minister this month. They are occupied by the US Military & are a US vassal with no sovereignty or independence. Nothing significant can happen to benefit Japan without US approval.

  30. 女系天皇を認めないからフェミニストじゃないというのはねえ？　フェミニストは女性ローマ法王を求めるのかね

  32. BBCあたりよりはマシだが、これも正しく報じているとはとても言えないね
    外国人問題の解決と財務省との戦いに勝って積極財政を実現すること
    これが最も求められている
    また女性云々は少なくとも支持者からはほとんど意識されていない

  34. Seems like Japan is sick of WOKE culture too- that is why Takaichi won. Activists calling Takaichi not a feminist says it all. The Japanese people voted for Takaichi because she is the best candidate, not because she is a woman.

Comments are closed.