Japan polls split on whether Shinjiro Koizumi or Sanae Takaichi leads LDP race

TOKYO – With less than a week until Japan’s ruling party is set to elect a new leader, opinion polls are split over whether political scion Shinjiro Koizumi or right-leaning Sanae Takaichi has the most backing among the party’s supporters.

The polls show that while Mr Koizumi and Ms Takaichi are still the two front runners, none of the five candidates in the race is likely to win a majority in the first round of voting, an outcome that would trigger a run-off between the two leading candidates.

A second vote would likely pit the pro-reform Mr Koizumi against the pro-stimulus Ms Takaichi, giving the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a vote for either its youngest post-war head or its first female leader.  

The victor will take over from

outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba

at the helm of the LDP and will probably become the nation’s new premier too, subject to a parliamentary vote.

The winner will face the challenge of reviving the party’s public support after two bruising national elections stripped the ruling coalition of its majority in both Houses of the legislature.

Key decisions on taxation, spending plans and how to implement a trade agreement with the US will await the new leader.

The latest surveys point to an increasingly fluid situation with Ms Takaichi taking a 34 per cent to 31 per cent lead over Mr Koizumi among eligible, fee-paying party members in a Kyodo News poll, while the Yomiuri newspaper showed Mr Koizumi with 41 per cent to 28 per cent advantage over his main rival. 

Still, the polls showed that Mr Koizumi has so far drawn more support than Ms Takaichi among lawmakers in the Diet, a critical factor given that a run-off vote heavily favours the votes of parliamentarians.

The Kyodo poll said Mr Koizumi had more than 80 backers among the LDP’s 295 lawmakers, ahead of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi with about 60 and Ms Takaichi with about 40.

Other polls showed a similar pattern. That still leaves a lot of votes up for grabs. 

Mr Hayashi, the closest of the five to a continuity candidate, will need to find much more support in the coming days if he is to make it to the second round of voting, given that he does not have the same backing among LDP members that Mr Ishiba had in 2024.

The first round has a total of 590 votes, of which half will be cast by the lawmakers and the other half by about 916,000 grassroots party members.

If none of the candidates wins a majority, the top two contenders with the most votes will head into a final contest for 295 ballots cast again by lawmakers and 47 ballots cast by regional branches of the party. 

In the 2024 vote, Mr Koizumi won the most votes among lawmakers in the first round of voting, but Ms Takaichi unexpectedly won the most votes among members, closely followed by Mr Ishiba, leading her into the run-off in which Mr Ishiba prevailed.

Prime ministers are voted in by the more powerful Lower Chamber of Parliament.

While the new leader will be best placed to become premier, given the LDP no longer has a majority in the Lower House, the appointment is less certain this time round.

The party’s minority status also opens up the possibility of an expansion of the current coalition between the LDP and its junior partner Komeito.

Smaller parties such as the Japan Innovation Party, which has a strong base in the western region of Kansai, and the Democratic Party for the People, which has campaigned on increasing take-home pay, have been floated as possible options. BLOOMBERG