Sanae Takaichi set to become Japan’s 1st female Prime Minister

Tokyo: Japan’s embattled governing party now has its new leader, former Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a hard-line conservative who is poised to become the country’s first female prime minister.

Takaichi, 64, immediately needs to seek ways to get her long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party to stay in power and regain public support by delivering measures to address price increases at home and dealing with diplomatic challenges such as US President Donald Trump.

A staunch supporter of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative vision, Takaichi is on the verge of losing her party’s long-time coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed dovish centrist Komeito, because of her ultra-conservative politics. Those include revisionism of wartime history and regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, seen as a symbol of militarism and reluctance to inclusivity, which experts say could complicate Tokyo’s relations with Asian neighbours.

She faces the dilemma of sticking to her ideology and losing the coalition partner or shifting to the centre, which would lose fans of her hawkish and ultra-conservative politics.

Parliamentary vote in mid-October, rising prices and Trump

The LDP and opposition parties are currently considering convening the parliament in mid-October to formally elect a new prime minister.

Takaichi is likely to be Japan’s leader because the LDP, even without a majority in either house of parliament following consecutive election losses, is still by far the largest in the lower house, which decides the national leader, and because opposition groups are highly splintered.

She will immediately need to get down to work to come up with measures to address rising prices as a way of bringing back voter confidence and support for the struggling party.agencies