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The former foreign minister won the race to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Japan’s former foreign minister Fumio Kishida won the election for the leader of the ruling party, almost ensuring that he will become the country’s next prime minister.
Kishida won 257 votes in Wednesday’s run-off, defeating the popular vaccine minister Taro Kono who served as the Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs.
The 64-year-old replaces the outgoing party leader Yoshihide Suga, who will step down after only one year in office in September last year.
As the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Kishida will certainly elect the next prime minister in Parliament on Monday, and his party and coalition partners will control the house.
He will now lead the Liberal Democratic Party in the general election due in November.
During the party leader election in Tokyo on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, pictures of Kono Taro (left) and Fumio Kishida are shown on the screen [Carl Court/Pool via AP]Wednesday’s vote was the second luck for Kishida, who lost to Yoshihide Suga in 2020.
He is widely regarded as a safe pair of hands, although his low-key presence is sometimes described as lacking charm.
He promised to invest heavily in a new pandemic stimulus plan, and at the same time promised to solve income inequality and get rid of the neoliberal economics that has dominated Japanese politics for the past two decades.
In order to differentiate himself from the unpopular pandemic response of Yoshihide Suga’s government, he emphasized the lessons learned from the previous failure to win leadership.
“I’m not doing well enough. I don’t think I have enough faith,” he admitted when he launched the campaign earlier this month.
“This time is different. I stand here, convinced that I am the leader I need at this time.”
Kishida served as the policy leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and served as foreign minister from 2012-17, during which time he negotiated agreements with Russia and South Korea, and Japan’s relations with these two countries were often cold.
He called the abolition of nuclear weapons “my life’s work” and helped then U.S. President Barack Obama on a historic visit to Hiroshima in 2016.
However, despite his reputation for liberalism, he is not as straightforward as Kono on issues such as same-sex marriage.
Kono said he supports same-sex marriage and called for discussion of it in parliament. Kishida said he “has not reached the point of accepting same-sex marriage.” In allowing married couples to retain different surnames, he also took a more moderate stance than Kono, which is another controversial issue.
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