Fumio Kishida wins Japan’s LDP leadership race

Xinhua News Agency

TOKYO, Sept. 29 — Fumio Kishida won the presidential election of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Wednesday (Sept. 29) to succeed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, calling for the LDP’s unity.

Kishida, who served as the country’s former foreign minister from 2012 to 2017, secured 257 votes in a runoff to win over his contender vaccination minister Taro Kono who received 170 votes.

At a meeting of the LDP lawmakers after the election, Kishida called for unity as he will lead the party into a general election scheduled for November and election of the upper House of Councillors next year.

Kishida said his government must formulate a multi-trillion-yen stimulus plan before the end of the year to mitigate the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also pledged to change the neoliberal policies of the previous administrations to ensure that ordinary people can enjoy the benefits of growth.

At the presidential election in the afternoon, LDP parliamentarians cast 382 votes and another 382 votes were allotted to rank-and-file members in the first round of voting. Kishida, winning 256 votes, entered the runoff vote round with Kono trailing at 255 votes.

In the runoff voting, the LDP lawmakers cast the same number of votes, but the rank-and-file members’ votes were reduced to one for each of the LDP’s 47 prefectural chapters.

With a dominant advantage in the votes from LDP parliamentarians, Kishida was elected as the new party leader.

Two female candidates, Sanae Takaichi, former communications minister, and Seiko Noda, LDP executive acting secretary general, lost out in the four-way race in the first round of voting earlier in the afternoon.

As the LDP-led coalition constitutes a majority in both chambers of the parliament in Japan, the new party president is set to be elected prime minister in the extraordinary Diet session scheduled to be held on Oct. 4, succeeding the incumbent Suga.

Working as Suga’s successor, the new prime minister will face tasks of leading the ruling party, which is working hard to support the COVID-19-battered economy, while also persuading the public that the LDP has leadership skills and a sense of responsibility that Suga is regarded as lacking. (Xinhua) – jlo

Popular

On Teachers’ Month, DepEd notes good news for teachers

By Brian Campued As the Philippines joins the global community in honoring the invaluable contributions of teachers in shaping the next generation’s leaders and professionals,...

Phivolcs identifies fault that caused magnitude 6.9 Cebu quake

By Brian Campued State seismologists have located the source of the powerful offshore earthquake that jolted northern Cebu and the rest of Visayas on Sept....

PBBM: Launch of new dairy farm to boost local milk production, supply

By Ruth Abbey Gita-Carlos | Philippine News Agency President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Friday expressed optimism that the inauguration of the Farm Fresh Milk...

PBBM leads distribution of various aid to Aeta communities in Pampanga

By Brian Campued In celebration of the National Indigenous Peoples Month this October, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. led the turnover of various forms of...