The election campaign for a September 29 internal poll of the ruling party in Japan officially kicked off Thursday, September 16, with four candidates vying to replace Yoshihide Suga as head of the Japanese party and government.
The winner of the election is almost guaranteed to be appointed Prime Minister after a vote in Parliament in early October, as the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, nationalist right) dominates Japanese political life.
Legislative elections must then be held, in November at the latest, and should, barring any huge surprise, consolidate the new Prime Minister in his post.
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Two men and two women are running for the head of the PLD.
The popular Taro Kono, 58, outgoing Minister of Administrative Reform also in charge of the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19, is given favorite.
But a surprise cannot be ruled out, as most of the major factions within the PLD have not openly given voting instructions to their members, contrary to their habits.
So influential Taro Aso, current finance minister who controls the second largest faction in the PLD, said he would support both Taro Kono and his moderate rival Fumio Kishida, former foreign minister (2012- 2017) 64 years old.
The Olympics at all costs
A former minister too, Sanae Takaichi, 60, is an ultra-nationalist with a very divisive personality, but she has the backing of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who pulls the strings of the main PLD faction. Seiko Noda, a 61-year-old former minister, seems to have the slimmer chances, having delayed collecting the minimum threshold of 20 PLD elected representatives required to compete.
An absolute majority is needed to win the September 29 election.
In a first round, the candidates will compete for 766 votes: those of the 383 elected PLD members of Parliament and the other half of party officials in the 47 departments of the archipelago.
If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the votes, a second round separating the two finalists is organized on the same day but including only 430 voters, including the 383 parliamentarians of the party.
See also Japan: Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will not be a candidate for re-election
Coming to power last September to replace Shinzo Abe who had been forced to resign for health reasons, Yoshihide Suga, 72, decided at the end of August not to run for the head of the PLD, and therefore to give up power. at the same time. Suga ended up becoming very unpopular because of his much-criticized handling of the health crisis in Japan, and his maintenance at all costs of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics this summer, despite Japanese public opinion largely opposed to the event.