TOKYO – Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will choose its new leader on Wednesday (Sept 29) in a poll that will have important ramifications for the country’s future.

Whoever wins in the race to succeed Mr Yoshihide Suga will likely be sworn in as Japan’s 100th Prime Minister when Parliament convenes on Oct 4. The LDP coalition has a majority in both the Lower and Upper Houses, making the Diet process all but a formality.

The winner of the poll, which will be held from 1pm (noon Singapore time) at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo, will also need to lead the LDP into a general election that must be called by November, as four-year terms for members of the lower house are due to expire on Oct 21.

Four candidates are in the running. They are vaccination minister Taro Kono, 58; former foreign minister Fumio Kishida, 64; former internal affairs minister Sanae Takaichi, 61; and LDP executive acting secretary-general Seiko Noda, 60.

They are split on such issues as gay marriage, the right of married couples to use different surnames, pension reforms, the need for Covid-19 hard lockdown measures, bureaucratic reforms, the possession of nuclear submarines, and the acquisition of first-strike capability against enemy bases among other things.

The winner will, therefore, be in pole position to steer domestic and foreign policy with Japan potentially becoming either more hawkish or dovish on defence, and more liberal or conservative in terms of social policies.

The public has a clear favourite, Mr Kono, who is also administrative reform minister and was a previous foreign and defence minister, would be the clear runaway winner if they could have their say.

A poll by Nikkei and TV Tokyo showed Mr Kono as the preferred choice as next PM by 46 per cent of respondents, and 45 per cent in a separate Mainichi Shimbun survey.

Mr Kishida came in second with 17 per cent in the Nikkei poll but Ms Takaichi was runner-up with 18 per cent in the Mainichi survey.

Mr Kono is also backed by Mr Suga as well as the popular former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba and environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

But alas, the public will not get any say in Wednesday’s election, which is restricted to LDP parliamentarians and card-carrying rank-and-file members.

There are 764 votes at stake. Each of the LDP’s 382 lawmakers in the Diet get one vote, while the other half is split among Japan’s 47 prefectural chapters where rank-and-file members also get a say.

Unless a candidate wins more than half of the votes in the first round, the top two finishers will go into a run-off election where 429 ballots are at play. In this case, the 382 lawmakers and 47 prefecture chapters get one vote each.

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Mr Kono looks odds-on to win the most number of votes in the first round, boosted by rank-and-file grassroots support, but fall short of the 50 per cent necessary for a decisive win.

This means that a run-off election will be held, where he will face off with what looks likely to be either Mr Kishida, who leads his own LDP faction, or Ms Takaichi, a staunch conservative backed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who continues to retain a lot of influence within the party.

Media surveys of LDP lawmakers indicate that Mr Kishida has secured about 135 lawmaker votes, with Mr Kono winning over 100 ballots and Ms Takaichi, just under 100 votes. Ms Noda, the latest entrant to the race who announced her candidacy only on the eve of Nomination Day, looks unlikely to catch up.

The prospect of a run-off election has led to serious strategizing and war-gaming among the lawmakers.

In Mr Kono’s camp, some lawmakers have reportedly toyed with the idea of voting for Ms Takaichi instead in the first round. This is to prop up her vote count enough to edge out Mr Kishida, amid their belief that Ms Takaichi will be easier to beat in a one-on-one against Mr Kono.

However, supporters of Mr Kishida and Ms Takaichi have reportedly entered a bargain deal to vote for each other’s candidate in the run-off poll to prevent Mr Kono from being elected.

In any case, if Mr Kono wins the first round but loses the crucial run-off election, it will be a repeat of the 2012 LDP election that propelled Mr Abe towards becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

At that time, he had come in second to Mr Ishiba, who was popular among the grassroots, in the first round in a crowded field of five candidates. But Mr Abe eventually prevailed in the second round to become LDP leader.

The run-off election, if necessary, will also be held on Wednesday, with the identity of the new LDP leader to become clear later in the day.

He or she is scheduled to call a news conference on Wednesday evening at the LDP headquarters in Nagatacho, Japan’s political nerve centre.

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PM Suga to step down

The election of the new leader means Mr Suga, 72, is set to step down just over a year since he took office on Sept 16 last year after the abrupt resignation of Mr Abe over a stress-induced chronic health condition.

Mr Suga’s departure comes after leading the year-long protracted battle against Covid-19, with the public unconvinced by his leadership amid repeated emergency measures and perceiving him as a poor communicator reluctant to deviate from script.

Successes, including the holding of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the launch of the Digital Agency, have largely been overlooked.

Mr Suga said on Sept 3 that he decided it was time to bow out because he wanted to prioritise the Covid-19 response, saying that it was impossible to oversee policy-making and campaign for the LDP election at the same time.

Yet observers have noted how the decision was an abrupt U-turn and that Mr Suga had as late as on Sept 2 said that he was naturally going to run for re-election.

But his position had become untenable after several poor power plays that had weakened his own support base within the LDP, which was already smarting from public rebukes in several municipal elections this year.

More than half of respondents to several media polls after his decision to bow out said that this was “appropriate”. Markets had rallied after his announcement over investor hopes for more political stability and decisive leadership.

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