Sanae Takaichi is elected president of the LDP. (Screenshot, October 4, 2025)
Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) made history on Saturday, October 4, by voting Lower House member Sanae Takaichi as the party's top leader. She is the first woman ever elected to hold that position for the LDP. Takaichi succeeds Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba as the party's president and could soon become Japan's first female prime minister.
As the new leader of the country's largest party, Takaichi will be a candidate for prime minister when all parties of the Lower House of the Diet meet to select Ishiba's successor. A date for that election has not been set. However, the LDP and its coalition party, the Komeito, do not currently hold a majority in either house of the Diet. Therefore, a coalition with other parties will be required if the LDP is to stay in power.
Inside the LDP Election
Considered a staunch conservative, the former Minister for Economic Security and other minister positions showed particular strength among ordinary LDP members across the country. On the first ballot, she won a comfortable plurality of votes among the five candidates for the job. Then, in a runoff with the popular LDP Lower House member and Minister of Agriculture Shinjiro Koizumi, she won among both prefectural delegates (36 of 47 votes) and LDP members of the Diet (149 of 294 votes).
The three other candidates in the race were Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi, and former Minister for Economic Security Takayuki Kobayashi.
Holding out her hand to emphasize party unity, Takaichi praised runner-up Koizumi and the other LDP candidates for their camaraderie and shared concern for the country. She also singled out outgoing party leader Ishiba, thanking him for his leadership over the last year. Her speech emphasized one priority as bringing the LDP together to tackle the country's most important domestic issues. Reflecting what she learned from party members near and far in Japan, she emphasized not only economics, but also reigniting a sense of hope and purpose in the LDP itself.
On foreign policy, Takaichi called for good relations with the United States to tackle the severe security climate and echoed former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies for the Indo-Pacific region.
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Author: Susan Komori, Deputy Chief Editor
