Takaichi Sanae, the hardline nationalist who may soon lead Japan

“OVERNIGHT SUCCESS”, a thumping 1980s pop song, blared as Takaichi Sanae stepped up to the podium to announce her candidacy to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The music choice was inapt; this is the 64-year-old lawmaker’s third attempt. A banner behind her urged “Fight on, Sanae!”. She spoke on topics such as the economy and geopolitics, and made little of her status as a female candidate. But another banner did not ignore her chance to make history; it called for her to become Japan’s first woman prime minister.

Ms Takaichi, a nationalist security hawk, is one of two front-runners in the race to lead the LDP that will be decided on October 4th. The winner will almost certainly become the country’s next prime minister, replacing Ishiba Shigeru, who is stepping down following two electoral drubbings. His successor will be decided by the LDP’s lawmakers and rank-and-file members. Opinion polls frequently show Ms Takaichi is the public’s favourite. Her main rival is Koizumi Shinjiro, a telegenic 44-year-old minister of agriculture and son of a popular former prime minister. Ms Takaichi is a torchbearer of the party’s hard right, and positions herself as the heir to Abe Shinzo, another LDP prime minister, who had endorsed her (he was assassinated in 2022). For the party’s conservatives, adrift since Abe’s death, she is a rallying figure. For her critics, her victory would represent a dangerous lurch rightwards for the party and for Japan.

Ms Takaichi’s background contrasts with the dynastic pedigrees of Mr Koizumi and many LDP grandees. She grew up in Nara in western Japan as the daughter of a salaryman and a police officer. She had a wild youth by the standards of Japanese politicians, riding motorbikes, playing drums in a heavy-metal band and rocking out to Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. She admires the Iron Lady, too. She cites Margaret Thatcher as a role model, praising the late British prime minister’s ability to “speak without fear when she believed it served her country”. Ms Takaichi was a television presenter before she was elected to parliament in 1993. She has held senior cabinet positions, including minister for internal affairs and for economic security.

Her message revolves around national pride and Japan’s revival. She speaks of a malaise afflicting the economy. She recalls that, during the country’s post-war boom, her father came home on paydays with a colour television, a stereo or a microwave. Hard work, she says, improved life during “a bright and energetic era”. Her campaign slogan is to “push Japan to the top again”.

Her economic policy calls for tax cuts and big increases in government spending. In the past she proposed “Sanaenomics”, a nod to her mentor’s “Abenomics” of monetary easing and fiscal stimulus. Mr Ishiba has warned about Japan’s public debt, which stands at 135% of GDP on a net basis. In contrast, Ms Takaichi is open to issuing more in order to support households hit by inflation and to subsidise rural areas, as well as to invest in sectors deemed vital to national security, such as semiconductors and energy. Last year she caused a stir by saying the Bank of Japan would be “stupid” to raise interest rates. She has refrained from making such edgy comments in this race, and de-emphasised some of her most expensive pledges, such as slashing the country’s 8% consumption tax. Still, analysts predict that her victory would cause the yen’s value to slide and push up bond yields.

Her supporters get more excited about her nationalism. She has long advocated revising the pacifist constitution to strengthen Japan’s armed forces. Though the public has become more supportive of strengthening the armed forces, a response to rising tensions with China and North Korea and wars abroad, the idea of changing the constitution remains divisive. Like Abe, Ms Takaichi has downplayed Japan’s wartime aggression and history of colonial rule. And though she may become the country’s first female prime minister, she is hardly a feminist. She insists that Japan’s imperial family must maintain its male line, and that married couples must adopt the same surname (a rule that results in most women giving up their own).

The LDP, which has held power almost without interruption for seven decades, faces a severe crisis. Following a string of scandals, it no longer holds a majority in either chamber of parliament. In an upper-house election in July support surged for Sanseito, a hard-right populist outfit that ran on an anti-immigration, “Japanese First” platform. The LDP, which has recently been led by members of its more liberal wing, fears losing its right-wing base. Ms Takaichi is trying to win those voters back. In a recent speech she railed against bad behaviour by tourists and foreign residents, and pledged to tighten immigration policy (though foreigners account for just 3% of Japan’s population).

Whether the party is willing to gamble on her is unclear. In the leadership contest last year Ms Takaichi came first among rank-and-file LDP members, but lost to Mr Ishiba in the run-off, in which parliamentary votes carry more weight. Many colleagues see her as too far right. Kishida Fumio, a former prime minister, allegedly nicknamed her “Taliban Takaichi”. Speaking to The Economist, one senior LDP lawmaker called those on the hard right like Ms Takaichi a “cancer” in the party.

As the LDP’s leadership vote approaches she is sounding more moderate. In previous campaigns she declared she would visit the controversial Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, which commemorates Japan’s war dead, including war criminals. That would upset China and South Korea. Now she avoids saying whether she would go.  She has begun calling herself a “moderate conservative”. This shift towards pragmatism risks alienating the voters who support her most ardently—but it could help secure the alliances she needs to win.■