Former Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida won an election to the ruling party on Wednesday and is set to become the next prime minister to face the immediate task of tackling the economy, which has been affected by a pandemic and secures a strong alliance with Washington in the fight against growing regional security threats.
Kishida, who has a reputation as a consensus builder, won in a runoff against the vaccination minister, Taro Kono.
Kishida replaces outgoing party leader Yoshihide Suga, who resigned after serving just one year after taking office last September.
The new leader is under pressure to change the reputation of the party, which has been tarnished by Suga, who angered the public about his coronary pandemic and his insistence on hosting the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
The two female candidates, Sanae Takaichi, a former communications minister, and the LDP executive acting secretary-general Seiko Noda lost out in the first round of voting earlier on Wednesday.
The long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party urgently needs to reverse the slump in public support before the upcoming two-month parliamentary elections.
Kishida called for growth and distribution under the "new capitalism", saying that the economy had benefited only large companies under the longest tenure of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, on September 3 announced that he won’t be contesting for party leadership, thus ending his tenure as prime minister. Suga faced a challenging year, trying to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, he faced discontent over his handling of the pandemic. Kishida will get time to settle into his new role as he will be sworn in on October 4. Japan is scheduled to have general elections in November. 64-year-old Kishida’s first mission would be to lead the LDP in the presidential elections.
Kishida, who visited India as foreign minister in 2015, promised that Japan will continue to contribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. Kishida had said, India and Japan were maritime countries whose “interests depended on the safety of sea lanes". Kishida backs the idea of passing a resolution condemning China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.
Known to be a moderate-liberal politician, Kishida will become Japan’s 100th prime minister.
Yu Uchiyama, a professor of political science at Tokyo University, said: “Overall, key foreign and security policies are expected to change little under the new leader.
All candidates support close relations between Japan and the United States in terms of security and partnership with other like-minded democracies in Asia and Europe, in part to counter growing influence.
-- With PTI inputs
