TOKYO, Aug 21 — A surfer, train enthusiast, and ‘Trump whisperer’ are among nearly a dozen competitors vying to succeed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida when he steps down next month.
AFP looks at the leading likely candidates to be leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — and therefore premier—ahead of a September 27 party vote.
The liberal Taro Kono, currently Japan’s minister for digital transformation, is an experienced and outspoken reformist who was defeated by Kishida in the last leadership race in 2021.
US-educated Kono, 61, has held multiple minister jobs including defence and foreign affairs.
Thirteen years after the Fukushima disaster, he has softened his opposition to nuclear power in order to meet growing energy demands from data centres and AI.
By LDP standards, he has liberal-leaning views, backing same-sex marriage, more immigration and supporting married women retaining their names.
He has 2.5 million followers on X, as well as 79,000 on his English-language account. Kono also donated his kidney to his politician father—a former LDP president.
“I have experienced so many cabinet positions,” Kono told a recent news conference. “I am hoping that one day I can make the most of this experience.”
Model maker Shigeru Ishiba is a former defence and agriculture minister who is popular with voters but less so with LDP lawmakers.
Since they have the power when it comes to choosing leaders, this has resulted in four failed attempts by Ishiba to be party leader.
The 67-year-old has questioned Japan’s reliance on monetary easing while calling for efforts to shore up the rural economy.
He likes making military models—including one of a Soviet aircraft carrier for the visit of a Russian defence minister—as well 1970s pop idols and trains.
The diplomat Harvard-educated former consultant and current foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa is one of three women reportedly weighing a bid to become Japan’s first woman premier.
While justice minister Kamikawa, 71, ordered 16 executions, including the head of the Aum doomsday cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
As Japan’s top diplomat, she has won plaudits, including for a visit to Kyiv. Tokyo has strongly backed the Western position on the Ukraine war.
As a rare woman in Japanese business and politics—just 16 percent of lawmakers are women—Kamikawa has pushed for more.
“I am certain that if we advance ‘Women, Peace and Security’ as a key diplomatic policy for Japan, the country will be able to contribute to a peaceful international community more than ever,” she said in an interview in March.
The nationalist Sanae Takaichi is a vocal nationalist popular with the conservative wing of the LDP. She was close to assassinated ex-premier Shinzo Abe whose supporters are still powerful.
Takaichi, 63, is a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead—including convicted war criminals—so her nomination would likely rile China and South Korea.
With US encouragement, Kishida has moved to patch up relations with Seoul while also ramping up defence spending to jointly counter China’s growing assertiveness.
Like Abe, Takaichi—who also ran for the leadership in 2021 -- backs aggressive monetary easing, active fiscal spending and nuclear power.
But unlike her hero Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, she played drums in a student heavy metal band.
The surfer Surfing, media-savvy Shinjiro Koizumi is the youthful, photogenic son of a popular former premier Junichiro Koizumi.
As environment minister Koizumi backed greater use of renewables.
He makes a point of appearing as a modern father, taking paternity leave while a minister and saying he wants to share parenting duties with his television presenter wife.
But this doesn’t endear him to LDP elders, who might see Koizumi, 43, as too young and too lightweight to be prime minister.
‘Trump Whisperer’ With strong English, Abe’s former golf partner Toshimitsu Motegi was dubbed the “Trump whisperer” for his deft handling of the former US president in tricky US-Japan trade talks.
The Harvard-educated former McKinsey consultant has had wide-ranging and important economic ministerial posts and has been economy and foreign minister.
Motegi, 68, is respected for his policy knowledge but is reportedly feared for having a short fuse. Trump reportedly told Abe that he thought Motegi was “too tough”. — AFP
