Shigeru Ishiba resigns: Who are the top contenders for Japan’s PM post?

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has announced his resignation, and now all eyes are on who will replace him, even as names of some potential PM candidates have already started floating around. The procedure to pick Japan’s next leader is now difficult, as Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which ruled Japan for most of the post-war period, and its junior coalition partner lost their majorities in both houses of parliament. And since the LDP president is no longer guaranteed to become premier, there is a possibility of an opposition party leader taking the helm.

So what’s next?

First, the LDP must pick a new president to replace Ishiba. There were nine contenders in the last election, and Ishiba won in a run-off.

The top contenders from LDP

The top contenders for the post who may enter the race include:

Sanae Takaichi, 64, is from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and if chosen, Takaichi would be Japan’s first female prime minister. A party veteran who has held the posts of economic security and internal affairs minister, she lost to Ishiba in the run-off vote last year.

Takaichi is known for conservative positions like revising the pacifist postwar constitution and is a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine to honour Japan’s war dead.

She stands out for her vocal opposition to the Bank of Japan’s interest rate hikes and her calls to ramp up spending to boost the fragile economy.

Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, also ran in the party leadership race last year and presented himself as a reformer able to restore public trust in a scandal-hit party, and if he wins, he would become Japan’s youngest prime minister in the modern era.

While Takaichi left government after her defeat in that contest, Koizumi stayed close to Ishiba as his agriculture minister, overseeing a widely publicised attempt to curb soaring rice prices.

Yoshimasa Hayashi, 64, has been Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, a job that includes being top government spokesperson, since December 2023 under then-premier Fumio Kishida and Ishiba. He has held several portfolios, including defence, foreign, and agriculture minister.

A fluent English speaker, Hayashi ran for the LDP leadership in 2012 and 2024 and has repeatedly called for respecting the BOJ’s independence on monetary policy.

WATCH: Russia's biggest drone attack on Ukraine, government office near Zelensky’s residence on fire

The top contenders from Opposition

Yoshihiko Noda, 68, a former prime minister, is the leader of the biggest opposition group, the centre-left Constitutional Democrats.

As premier from 2011 to 2012, he pushed through legislation to double Japan’s consumption tax to 10% to help curb bulging public debt and earned a reputation as a fiscal hawk.

In the July upper house election, Noda did a turnaround and called for a temporary cut in consumption tax on food items.

Yuichiro Tamaki, 56, of centre-right Democratic Party for the People, is a former finance ministry bureaucrat. Tamaki co-founded the Democratic Party for the People in 2018 and advocates increasing people’s take-home pay by expanding tax exemptions and slashing the consumption tax.

He supports boosting defence capabilities, stricter regulations for foreigners’ land acquisition, and constructing more nuclear power plants.