Photo/Illutration Sanae Takaichi acknowledges the cheers of fellow Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers on Oct. 4 after winning the party’s presidential election. (Koichi Ueda)

Japan is set to have its first female prime minister after Sanae Takaichi won the leadership election of the Liberal Democratic Party on Oct. 4.

Takaichi, 64, defeated close contender Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, in a runoff vote.

The election was triggered by Shigeru Ishiba’s announcement in September that he would step down as prime minister in the face of two humiliating defeats for the LDP in national elections under his watch.

An extraordinary Diet session is expected to be convened on Oct. 15.

Although the ruling coalition does not have a majority in either chamber, the opposition has yet to rally around a single candidate, meaning Takaichi will almost certainly become prime minister.

There were five candidates in the election, but none received an outright majority of votes cast by LDP lawmakers and party members in the first round of voting.

Takaichi garnered the most votes with 183, followed by Koizumi, the farm minister, with 164, necessitating the runoff.

In the runoff, Takaichi received 185 votes over Koizumi’s 156.

During her campaign, Takaichi called for an aggressive fiscal policy of investment to deal with crisis management and promote growth.

As measures to deal with surging consumer prices, she called for cutting the gasoline tax and expanding tax subsidies to local governments. She also proposed a combination of cash payouts and tax exemption increases.

Takaichi said she would work to gain the cooperation of opposition parties and indicated the coalition framework would be expanded by offering Cabinet portfolios to parties willing to join.

She is expected to hold talks with opposition leaders about expanding the coalition prior to the start of the next Diet session.

Takaichi’s display of a more moderate conservative stance during the campaign clearly paid off.

When she ran in the LDP presidential election last year, Takaichi rattled feathers by pledging to visit Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class-A war criminals are memorialized, if she became prime minister. The shrine is viewed by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan’s wartime militarism.

But she was vaguer about such a visit during the latest campaign.

Takaichi has vowed to take more stringent measures against foreigners who flout the law. She has played to public concerns about a sharp influx of foreigners by claiming to have evidence of foreign tourists kicking deer in Nara Park.

She has represented the Nara No. 2 Lower House district for 10 terms, first winning election in 1993. Another first-time winner in that election was the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Takaichi and Abe developed close ties, due in part to their conservative views in many policy areas.

Takaichi served as state minister in charge of Okinawa and the Northern Territories in 2006 when Abe served his first stint as prime minister.

She was later internal affairs minister and LDP policy chief.

With strong backing from Abe, Takaichi first ran in the LDP presidential election in 2021, when Fumio Kishida won.

This was her third attempt.

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