Overview

• Takaichi won a runoff over Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi in an internal vote that included party members, supporters and elected lawmakers.
• An Abe-aligned conservative, she backs expanding the military’s role through constitutional change and closer ties with Taiwan, and she opposes same-sex marriage and separate married surnames.
• Her victory makes her the first woman to lead the Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the past seven decades.
• The party enters this transition weakened after losing its majority in both houses in July, a setback that led to Shigeru Ishiba’s resignation and raised hurdles for governing.
• Koizumi, 44, campaigned on easing inflation and cutting taxes after pushing measures to lower rice prices, and he would have been the youngest postwar prime minister.