The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan is preparing for a special election in October to replace outgoing Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, who announced his resignation after less than a year in office on Sunday.
Among the top contenders to replace him are Ishibia’s stalwart ally, farm minister Koizumi Shinjiro, and one of his toughest critics, former economic minister Takaichi Sanae.
LDP leaders have yet to decide how the election will be managed. If they choose the “full-scale” approach, in which all party members get a vote, the process would begin in late September and conclude in early October. The Japan Times reported on Monday that September 22 and October 4 are under consideration as starting and ending dates.
The party could have pushed for an emergency election on a faster timetable, effectively forcing Ishiba out of office immediately, but LDP leaders apparently wanted to show respect to Ishiba by accepting his resignation gracefully. They may also have valued a little extra time to consult with their supporters and decide who the candidates for succession should be.
The “emergency” election process would also involve fewer ballots, giving more weight to party leadership’s choices. LDP may hope to avoid the perception of party elites picking the replacement for an unpopular prime minister.
Ishiba held a news conference on Sunday to announce he would step down as soon as the LDP held a leadership election to replace him. The party would almost certainly have demanded his resignation if he did not offer it willingly.
The LDP has dominated Japanese politics for most of the postwar era and, despite the recent election setbacks that were one reason for Ishiba’s resignation, it is highly likely that the new leader of the party will also become the next prime minister.
Takaichi Sanae, 64, would become the first female prime minister of Japan if she gets the nod. She narrowly lost the leadership election to Ishiba last year in a runoff vote.
Takaichi, formerly minister for economic security and internal affairs at different points in her career, is a conservative LDP stalwart who supports revising the Japanese constitution to remove its pacifist clauses.
Takaichi was a close ally of former prime minister Abe Shinzo, who was assassinated in July 2022 after leaving office, and she has been highly critical of Ishiba. She has spoken of her desire to “put the backbone back into the LDP.” She would probably be the best choice for rallying disaffected conservative voters back to the party, but her detractors fear she could drive moderates away and complicate LDP’s dealings with other parties in the Diet.
Koizumi, 44, would become the youngest prime minister of Japan if he wins the race. The record holder is Abe, who was 52 when he took office. Koizumi is the son of a former prime minister, Koizumi Junichiro, who held office from 2001 to 2006.
Koizumi finished third behind Ishiba and Takaichi last time around, but some party-watchers believe his position has improved since then thanks to his charisma and the sense that he could give the party a fresh start.
The farm minister’s youth and relative inexperience could also count against him, as could his close relationship with the departing Ishiba. Nikkei Asia reported last week that Koizumi played a key role in convincing Ishiba to step down to avoid further damage to the LDP.
The other man in the room when Ishiba made his decision was former prime minister Suga Yoshihide — and Koizumi talked him into resigning in 2021. Japan is about to name its fourth prime minister in five years. Some party members will look at Koizumi’s role in the leadership turnovers and worry that he might be too ambitious for his age.
Both Takaichi and Koizumi were politely deflecting questions about whether they would run or not on Tuesday morning, but they are the leading candidates in most handicaps of the race. The first declared candidate was former LDP secretary-general Motegi Toshimitsu, 69, who tossed his hat in the ring on Monday.
“I want to dedicate everything I have to this country,” said Motegi, presenting himself as a party veteran who could guide LDP through the worst political crisis in its history.
Motegi has a long resume of winning seats in the Diet and holding various cabinet posts, including foreign minister from 2019 to 2021. He was credited with skillfully managing Japan’s relations with the United States, a skill that would come in very handy during President Donald Trump’s second term. The Harvard-educated Motegi was dubbed the “Trump Whisperer” in Japan because he got along so well with Trump during his first term.
Two other prospective candidates appear popular with LDP lawmakers: Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa and former economic minister Kobayashi Takayuki.
Hayashi, 64, was the fourth-place contestant in the previous leadership race. Party insiders expect him to declare his candidacy soon, no matter what Takaichi and Koizumi decide to do. Like Motegi, Hayashi is U.S.-educated, speaks English fluently, and has good contacts in the United States.
Kobayashi, 50, appeals to some of the LDP voters who like Koizumi’s youthful energy, but worry that he might not be measured or seasoned enough for the job. He has cultivated an image as a big-picture thinker and eager reformer, untainted by the party squabbles and scandals that damaged Ishiba.
LDP was weakened enough in the last election to make it possible, but highly unlikely, for an opposition candidate to become prime minister. In that scenario, former prime minister Noda Yoshihiko of the center-left Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and Tamaki Yuichiro of the center-right Democratic Party for the People (DPP) appear to be the strongest candidates.
Noda, 68, was among the few Japanese prime ministers who did not hail from the LDP. He belonged to the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan at the time, but today he heads the CDP, Japan’s largest opposition party.
Noda’s three-year term ended in 2012 with his resignation, paving the way for Abe Shinzo to bring LDP back into power. It could be interesting to see him spar with Abe’s disciple Takaichi, since he would need to poach a large number of her conservative supporters to have any chance of winning.
Tamaki, 56, founded the DPP in 2018, lost control of it for a while due to an extramarital affair with a swimsuit model, and resumed leadership in March 2025.
Tamaki is a very energetic populist whose manic style, and demands for higher take-home pay through tax cuts, have made him popular with young voters. The DPP is arguably Japan’s fastest-growing party, although it has stiff competition from the rising nationalist Do-It-Yourself Party, better known as Sanseito.
Sanseito leader and founder Kamiya Sohei could be a wild card in the prime minister race as well. If Motegi is the “Trump Whisperer,” then Tamaki does not whisper, and Kamiya is the Japanese Trump — a comparison he enjoys, having modeled much of his populist “Japan First” platform on the sitting American president.
Sanseito, which is barely five years old and won its first parliamentary seat in 2022, made stunning gains in the last election, in part due to intense conservative voter frustration with LDP and Ishiba. Sanseito is still smaller than DPP at the moment — DPP holds enough seats to introduce legislation on its own, while Sanseito does not, an important threshold. Both are dwarfed by CDP as an opposition party, so Noda looks like the strongest candidate to mount a longshot opposition bid for the prime minister’s office.
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