Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will choose the country’s fifth leader in five years on Saturday following the resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
After governing Japan almost continuously since the 1950s, the conservative party has been in disarray following successive election defeats and a series of political scandals.
The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito lost their governing majority in lower house elections in October last year, a defeat followed by a drubbing in upper house polls in July.
After leading a badly damaged minority government for nearly a year, Ishiba announced on September 7 that he would step down.
Whoever takes over the LDP will face a public frustrated over the cost of living, an ascendant populism epitomised by the “Japan first” Sanseito party, and the headwinds of US President Donald Trump’s trade war.
LDP lawmakers and some one million rank-and-file party members will choose from five candidates, ranging from the son of a former prime minister to the protege of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Their choice could determine whether Japan will enjoy a period of political stability or continue down the path of the “rotating prime ministership,” which marked Japanese politics in the late 1990s and early 2000s, said Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies.
“Even though it’s not historically abnormal for Japan to have a high turnover rate, this is a very bad time for Japan to not have stable political leadership,” Hall told media.
Here’s a look at the candidates:
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