A photogenic political scion, a military model maker and a radical who hopes to become Japan’s first female prime minister are among nine candidates to lead the world’s fourth-largest economy.
AFP provides a list of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) MPs vying to win the ruling party’s leadership contest – and thus become prime minister – on September 27:
Surfer
Surfing, media-loving Shinjiro Koizumi is the young, photogenic son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
As environment minister, Koizumi supported greater use of renewable energy.
He has also taken paternity leave in the post and said he wants to share parenting duties with his television presenter wife.
But this does not endear him to senior LDP leaders, as they see the 43-year-old Koizumi as too young and too weak to be prime minister.
Model Maker
Shigeru Ishiba is a former defense minister who is popular with voters but less so among LDP lawmakers, resulting in his four failed attempts to become party leader.
The 67-year-old has questioned the Bank of Japan’s interest rate policy, as well as called for efforts to halt the decline of the rural population.
He enjoys building military models — including a Soviet aircraft carrier built for a visit by the Russian defense minister — as well as trains and 1970s pop sculptures.
nationalist
Sanae Takaichi is an outspoken nationalist popular in the LDP’s conservative wing. She was close to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated, and whose supporters remain powerful.
Takaichi, 63, is a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead – including convicted war criminals – so her nomination could anger China and South Korea.
Like Abe, Takaichi, who also ran for leadership in 2021, supports aggressive monetary easing, active fiscal spending and nuclear energy.
But unlike his hero, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he played drums in a student heavy metal band.
Liberal
Taro Kono, currently the digital transformation minister, is an experienced and outspoken reformist who was defeated by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the last leadership race in 2021.
The 61-year-old Kono, educated in the US, has held several ministerial posts and has 2.5 million followers on X. His views are moderate by LDP standards.
Thirteen years after the Fukushima disaster, he has softened his opposition to nuclear power to meet growing energy demands, including artificial intelligence data centers.
Diplomat
Yoko Kamikawa, a Harvard-educated former adviser and current foreign minister, is one of two women in the race along with Takaichi.
As justice minister, Kamikawa ordered the executions of 16 people, including the head of the Aum doomsday cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
The 71-year-old has earned praise as Japan’s top diplomat, including during a visit to Kyiv, but has reportedly struggled to secure the support needed to run as a candidate.
‘Trump Whisperer’
With strong English, Abe’s former golf partner Toshimitsu Motegi was nicknamed the “Trump Whisperer” for skillfully handling tricky U.S.-Japan trade negotiations.
The Harvard-educated LDP secretary general has served as economy and foreign minister, and is respected for his policy knowledge.
But Motegi, 68, is said to have a short temper. Even Trump reportedly told Abe that he thought Motegi was “too tough.”
Other people
Former Foreign Minister and current Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Health Minister Katsunobu Kato and former Economic Security Minister Takayuki Kobayashi are also in the race.
Anything can happen, as the race is more open this time, as most of the LDP’s factions have been dissolved due to the financing scandal.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
