SEOUL, South Korea — Two front-runners have emerged in the race to be Japan’s next prime minister: the comparatively youthful scion of a political dynasty and a foreign policy hawk who could become the country’s first female leader.
The first stage of the race to head America’s leading Asian ally is set to be held within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Oct. 4, with rank-and-file members and sitting lawmakers casting ballots.
Agricultural Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and former Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi are leading the race, according to polls.
The contest was sparked after party chief and sitting Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who took on the positions in October, announced his resignation on Sept. 7 as his support within his party cratered.
Normally, the head of the ruling party automatically becomes prime minister, but with the LDP having lost its majority in both houses of the Diet under Mr. Ishiba’s leadership, that is no longer a certainty.
Even so, as the LDP holds the largest number of seats in the Diet, the winner of its Oct. 4 leadership contest looks set to take over as head of the Japanese government.
Ms. Takaichi placed second and Mr. Koizumi came in third behind Mr. Ishiba in the most recent party leadership race.
Also running are Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, 64, former LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi and Takayuki Kobayashi, another former minister of economic security, but their support is well behind the two front-runners.
There is no clear leader in the race.
A Mainichi Daily poll on Sept. 22 found 25% support for Ms. Takaichi and 21% for Mr. Koizumi. A telephone poll by Nippon.com on the same day found 26.7% favoring Mr. Koizumi, followed by Ms. Takaichi at 23.4%. Another poll on Sept. 26 by Jiji Press, from among sitting lawmakers, who would decide the race if there is a second-round runoff vote, found Mr. Koizumi ahead.
Mr. Koizumi is 44, youthful by Japan’s dusty political standards: Mr. Ishiba is 68, while his predecessor, Fumio Kishida, left office at 67.
The son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and grandson of Defense Minister Junya Koizumi, he was educated at New York’s Columbia University, then was a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Sporting youthfulness and telegenic looks, Mr. Koizumi has earned national kudos in his struggle to bring down the country’s soaring rice prices and for his overall communications savvy: He famously said climate change should be dealt with in a manner that is “fun, cool and sexy.” His love of cats — a winner in a nation of cat lovers — and surfing are well known.
His youth suggests he may be the best bet to push social and economic reforms that the LDP has long been resistant to, while his nice-guy persona looks suited to brokering political deals with other parties, which the once-lofty LDP must accustom itself to, given the loss of its majority status.
Ms. Takaichi, 64, is seen as the leading protege of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister who was considered one of the country’s most powerful and influential politicians until his 2022 murder.
His killer was angered by his, and his party’s, links to the Unification Church, which shares the LDP’s stance on conservative, family values and anti-communism. The church operates a number of businesses, including The Washington Times.
Ms. Takaichi cites the late U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a key inspiration. Like some others in the LDP’s right wing, she downplays Japanese war guilt and atrocities in the 1930s and ’40s.
She also has been a frequent visitor to Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine — as has Mr. Koizumi — infuriating China and Korea.
She has spoken out against migrants and ill-mannered tourists, two recent political hot potatoes.
Her campaign style may be aimed at conservative Japanese who in the country’s two most recent elections in 2024 and 2025 turned away from the LDP. Some say the party’s right-wingers are abandoning it for upstart political machine Shinseito, which has adopted a “Japanese First” stance and compares itself to the MAGA movement in the U.S.
Unlike Mr. Koizumi, Ms. Takaichi opposes same-sex marriage and permitting wives to use their maiden surnames after marrying.
Like the late Abe, who forged a close relationship with President Trump in his first term, she is a defense hardliner, seeking constitutional revisions to empower the armed forces.
Despite her conservatism, she has allayed fears that she is a hard-core nationalist by making clear that she would deepen Tokyo’s current positive relations with Seoul.
That should assuage Washington, which has long sought trilateral partnerships in Northeast Asia, home to the bulk of the world’s manufacturing and to high-stakes strategic rivalries between the region’s democratic and authoritarian states.
The center-right LDP, which has led the nation for most of Japan’s postwar, democratic history, has been facing a series of troubles.
The party’s image has been battered by political slush fund scandals and is internally racked by divisions between its different wings and leading personalities. In the Diet, it is faced with the rise of new, right-wing parties such as Shinseito.
The election’s winner — Japan’s fifth prime minister in five years — will inherit a tough job.
The country is suffering from a population decline and a long economic malaise. With no new growth engines apparent, renewed fears of “Japan passing” — that the country is gradually losing its influence and significance — are rising.
Strategically, Tokyo was shocked by Russia’s 2022 invastion of Ukraine, is concerned about Taiwan’s security, and fears partnerships between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang. Those factors are tying the island nation more tightly to Washington, even as it swallows the bitter pill of U.S. tariffs and investment demands.
