Sanae Takaichi won the Liberal Democratic Party presidential poll Saturday with the backing of a party membership that saw its moderate groups split their support among two candidates in the first round of voting and amid worries about the rise of smaller right-wing opposition forces like Sanseito.
Takaichi, who became the LDP’s first-ever female president and is likely to become Japan’s first female prime minister, was also the choice of former Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose support was critical for her victory in the runoff and whose role as a behind-the-scenes kingmaker could greatly influence her party leadership and Cabinet choices, as well as her policies.
Saturday’s voting patterns suggest that, while the conservative and hawkish Takaichi, a protege of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was the favorite among local LDP chapters, her fellow members of parliament were more divided.
In the initial round, two candidates who were running as moderate conservatives — agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi — finished in second and third place behind Takaichi. She won 183 of the 589 votes available from lawmakers and rank-and-file party members, while Koizumi and Hayashi had a combined 298 votes.
Of the first round total split among five candidates, Takaichi won 64 of the 294 parliamentary votes. Koizumi and Hayashi won a combined 152, with Koizumi taking 80 and Hayashi pulling in 72.
For the separate 295 rank-and-file party member votes, Takaichi finished with 119. Koizumi and Hayashi won a combined total of 146 votes, with Koizumi taking 84 and Hayashi grabbing 62.
Thus, although Takaichi prevailed, the result might have been different if the party’s centrists had been able to channel their votes to just one preferred candidate in the first round.
“The fact that Koizumi and Hayashi, who represented the LDP's moderate, centrist faction, split the party member vote created an image of a landslide victory for Takaichi,” said Ritsumeikan University political scientist Masato Kamikubo.
In the key runoff election between Takaichi and Koizumi, the final vote flow showed a split in preference between local party members and parliamentarians. Takaichi won 36 of the 47 local chapter votes, one for each prefecture.
But the final tally among LDP parliamentarians was close: 149 for Takaichi and 145 for Koizumi. What may have given her the edge was the support of Aso, who continues to head the party’s last remaining faction of 43 members. The other factions were dissolved last year in the wake of a political funds scandal that was centered on the former Abe faction.
The 85-year-old Aso backed Takaichi in last year’s presidential election and she lobbied hard for his support in this year’s contest — a move that appears to have paid off.
Prior to Saturday’s vote, Aso told his faction members to vote in the runoff for whichever candidate received the largest number of party member votes in the first round.
As some media polls indicated before the election, Takaichi was the clear leader in that category, so that was seen as a call by Aso on his faction members to vote for her.
It remains unclear how many of the 43 Aso faction members backed Takaichi. A few, especially former digital minister Taro Kono, supported Koizumi. But Kamikubo said many individual LDP parliamentarians, regardless of whether they are Aso faction members, cast their ballots in the runoff for Takaichi out of self-interest rather than loyalty to the former prime minister.
“Individual lawmakers looked at the situation in their own constituencies. They likely thought that if Takaichi became party president, it would help stop support for Sanseito from spreading in their constituencies and win back support for the LDP in the next election,” he said.
Takaichi's next step will have to move beyond those who voted for her and reach out to Koizumi, Hayashi and more moderate conservative LDP members to build an effective party leadership team and Cabinet.
At least some of the votes that went to two other first round candidates, former LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi and former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi, who shares Takaichi’s conservative principles, appeared to shift to Takaichi in the runoff.
As for Koizumi, it appears that parliamentary votes for Hayashi, who had vowed to continue with the policies of the administration of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, flowed his way.
Takaichi’s next step is to build a party leadership team, something that is expected to take place this week. But she will have to choose carefully. There could be a party and public backlash if she appoints former Abe faction members caught up in the political funds scandals to key positions. Many of those lawmakers supported her leadership bid.
She might also face questions about undue influence from Aso if she ends up appointing him or his close allies to key positions.
Takaichi will need to reassure moderate-centrist coalition partner Komeito, which reacted cautiously to her win. She must also find an as-yet unknown opposition party to join the ruling coalition or support the LDP’s policies in order to secure a parliamentary majority — all before the expected autumn session begins in a few weeks.
These challenges mean Takaichi will likely be forced to alter or abandon long-cherished personal ideological beliefs in order to gain the needed consent to govern a divided party running a minority government.
These include visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which is dedicated to 2.5 million war dead who have perished in conflicts since the late 19th century, but includes senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes after World War II.
Abe, who visited the shrine in 2013, was the last sitting prime minister to do so. That visit stoked tensions with China and South Korea and was even opposed by the U.S.
Takaichi has enthusiastically supported such visits by Japanese leaders, but has avoided questions on whether she would make a visit herself.
While Takaichi may be willing to avoid Yasukuni and compromise other beliefs, she could find that doing so alters the flow of support — and not in her favor.
“Being flexible on her ideological beliefs risks provoking a backlash from the LDP’s conservative faction in parliament and in local chapters that have fervently supported her, and this loss of support means a potentially swift decline in her approval ratings,” Kamikubo said.
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