Victory for Japan’s polarising Iron Lady, Takaichi Sanae

JAPAN’S LONG-TIME ruling party has elected its first-ever female leader. Takaichi Sanae, a conservative hardliner, defeated four other colleagues running to head the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). She is poised to become Japan’s first female prime minister when the Diet meets to elect a new one in a vote expected on October 15th. She heralds a bracing new era of combative politics in Japan. Her ascent comes with the LDP in crisis, relations with America, Japan’s chief ally, in flux, and the regional security environment in disarray.

The LDP has dominated Japanese politics since its founding 70 years ago, but it has stumbled in recent years. Scandals over political fundraising and campaign tactics alienated voters; the party also struggled to address concerns about rising living costs. In September 2024 the LDP turned to Ishiba Shigeru, a veteran lawmaker with an independent streak, to arrest its fall. But he stepped down after less than a year as prime minister, following drubbings in both lower and upper house elections that left the LDP and its coalition partner ruling with a minority in both chambers for the first time in its history.

The official motto for this year’s leadership contest spelled out the task clearly: “#ChangeLDP”. Ms Takaichi, a disciple of the late prime minister Abe Shinzo, prevailed in a run-off over Koizumi Shinjiro, the son of another former prime minister, winning a majority of both Diet lawmakers’ and rank-and-file members’ votes. Mr Koizumi entered election day the odds-on favourite, but Ms Takaichi’s muscular vision of a staunchly conservative party prevailed over his calls for a big-tent approach.

For the LDP’s conservative wing, Ms Takaichi’s selection marks a triumph. For her more liberal critics inside and outside the party, it heralds an ominous rightward lurch. At the very least it is yet another sign of Japan joining the global democratic trend towards polarising, nationalistic, culture-warrior politics. “It’s happening everywhere, and it’s happening here in Japan as well,” says Gerald Curtis, a longtime scholar of Japanese politics at Columbia University.

Ms Takaichi will be a mould-breaking leader in more ways than one. Unlike many LDP grandees, she does not hail from a political dynasty; she grew up as the daughter of a salaryman and a police officer in Nara, an ancient capital in western Japan. In her youth she played drums in a heavy metal band and became a motorcycle enthusiast. After a spell in television news, Ms Takaichi entered parliament in 1993, eventually serving atop the communications ministry and, most recently, as minister for economic security.

In a country with one of the world’s largest gender gaps, Ms Takaichi represents much-needed symbolic change. Yet she has hardly been a crusader for female empowerment. A staunch social conservative, she opposes giving married couples the legal right to keep separate surnames or allowing female succession in the imperial line, bellwether issues for gender equality in Japan. She calls Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s “Iron Lady”, her political role model. But her true mentor was Abe, who blessed her as the flag-bearer of the LDP’s right wing following his resignation as prime minister in 2020.

Her policy agenda bears many similarities to Abe’s. Echoing her patron, she declares that “Japan is back”. She favours stronger Japanese armed forces and wants to complete Abe’s mission to revise Japan’s post-war constitution. She seeks “peace through strength”, says Taniguchi Tomohiko, a former advisor to Abe who supported Ms Takaichi’s campaign. She also promises a continuation of Abenomics, his economic agenda—though mostly its expansionary fiscal and monetary elements. “For Takaichi as well as Abe, fiscal prudence is less important than growth,” Mr Taniguchi says.

She also shares Abe’s revisionist views on Japan’s wartime history. That will complicate the recent rapprochement between Japan and South Korea, as well as attempts to stabilise relations with China. She calls for making the LDP a party “that promotes pride in [Japan’s] traditions and history”. She has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the spirits of Japan’s war dead, including war criminals. If she chose to go as prime minister, she would be the first Japanese leader to do so in more than a decade, a move sure to anger Japan’s neighbours; an early litmus test will come during the shrine’s annual fall festival, which begins on October 17th.

Another early test will soon follow. Donald Trump is expected to visit Tokyo on October 27th, en route to a meeting of the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group in South Korea at the end of the month. During the campaign Ms Takaichi suggested that Japan might need to renegotiate a massive but vague tariff and investment agreement that Mr Ishiba struck with Mr Trump, if the terms prove unfavourable to Japan. But she has stated that the alliance with America remains the “cornerstone” of Japan’s security. She will probably try to strengthen ties with Mr Trump through their shared friendship with Abe, writes Tobias Harris of Japan Foresight, a consultancy.

Ms Takaichi’s biggest challenges, however, will be at home. Her expansionist economic agenda will come up against the realities of a new inflationary era that has led Japan’s borrowing costs to rise since Abe’s time. Abe also enjoyed large parliamentary majorities and a strong grip over his party, which allowed him to control the legislative agenda, while Ms Takaichi has a weaker power base inside the party and, as the head of a minority government, will need to either expand the current coalition or form ad hoc alliances with opposition parties to pass legislation. Her “ultimate test will be handling this…delicate coalition building process”, Mr Taniguchi says. (In theory the opposition parties could band together to select an alternative prime minister, but it would require bridging vast political differences.)

The LDP must also contend with upstart populist parties that have made inroads in recent elections. By choosing Ms Takaichi, the LDP is signaling an intention to win back right-wing voters who abandoned it for Sanseito, a hard-right outfit that has fuelled anger over a growing number of foreign workers and overseas tourists. Ms Takaichi proved willing to pander to such concerns, kicking off her campaign by repeating apocryphal stories about foreign tourists kicking sacred deer in her hometown of Nara.

The approach is hardly guaranteed to work. By pulling the party sharply to the right, Ms Takaichi risks widening the fissures between the LDP’s conservative and more moderate wings. She will open opportunities for more liberal opposition forces to peel away centrist voters. She may also imperil the LDP’s alliance with Komeito, its dovish coalition partner for the past quarter-century. Selecting Ms Takaichi is “just going to hasten the collapse of the party,” Mr Curtis reckons.

In her victory speech, Ms Takaichi made clear she understands the stakes. “I will abandon the notion of work-life balance,” she declared, pledging to “work, work, work” to rebuild the party and revive the country. She will have plenty of work to do. ■