Newly elected president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Shigeru Ishiba, holds a press conference after a runoff ballot in a leadership contest which he won by a narrow 21-vote margin. Under Japan’s parliamentary system, Ishiba is expected to become the next prime minister due to the LDP’s majority in the National Diet. Photo Kim Kyung-Hoon/EPA-EFE
Sept. 27 (UPI) — Former Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba was elected by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party Friday as its leader and, de facto, the next prime minister.
Ishiba said Friday that security and restoring optimism in the country would be his top priorities after beating out the right-leaning Sanae Takiachi for the LDP presidency — campaigning to become the country’s first female leader — in a 215-194 vote in a run-off ballot.
“We must believe in the people and speak the truth with courage and sincerity,” he told his party.
“I will do my utmost to make Japan a safe and secure country where everyone can live with a smile on their face once again.”
As the leader of the largest party in the Diet, the lower house, Ishiba will be formally voted in as prime minister on Tuesday, replacing the scandal-plagued outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida who stepped down last month after less than three years at the helm and with a year to run until a general election is due.
Kishiba was popular internationally but his reputation took a beating domestically due to fallout from the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and legacy party corruption scandals he inherited involving slush funds that forced him to sack four cabinet members and saw a series of arrests.
The Japanese economy remains challenging, despite wage rises leading to modest growth recovery, but overall performance continues to lack luster with households grappling with rising prices.
The incoming prime minister faces an uphill battle to restore public faith in government despite Kishida racking up a string of security triumphs both in the region and on the global stage that prompted U.S. President Joe Biden to call him a leader “guided by unflinching courage and moral clarity” who had “transformed Japan’s role in the world.”
Speaking after winning the LDP leadership at the fifth attempt in what he said would be his final political battle, the 67-year-old Ishiba lauded his predecessor for taking the difficult “decision to regain the trust of the people so that the LDP can be reborn.”
He pledged to appoint a cabinet made up of people from LDP who would exercise their responsibility “appropriately” and acknowledged the imperative of seeking a mandate from the Japanese people through a general election “as soon as possible,” but also stressed the need to tackle the “severe situation” facing the country.
Ishiba favors a NATO-style collective security alliance for the region amid rising tensions between China and Taiwan and has said he would seek to overhaul the U.S-Japan alliance with regard to the status of U.S. forces in Japan.
Ishiba also supports reforms that would allow women to become emperor and use different surnames from their husbands, long opposed by successive governments and many in his party.