By Venkatesh Raghavan
A four-cornered contest is slated for Japan’s September 29 elections for the post of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president. The LDP president elect will be ushered in as the new Japanese Prime Minister by early October this year. An extraordinary parliamentary session has been sought to be convened for this purpose. The situation being prompted by the eleventh hour resignation of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in wake of mounting unpopularity owing to inept handling of the Covid pandemic has thrown wide open the race for the country’s top job.
As of now, the front runner for the country’s top job happens to be Taro Kono, the 58-year-old vaccine minister. 64-year-old ex-foreign minister, Fumio KIshida is viewed in popular circles as Kono’s main opponent for the chair. Interestingly, the contest has been rendered four-cornered owing to the presence of two women candidates, namely Seiko Noda (61) and Sanane Takaichi (60). While Noda is known for championing women’s parity, Takaichi is known to be from an ultra-conservative school of thought. It serves to act as a surprise chance for Japan getting its first woman prime minister. Though the PM’s chair was thrown open owing to public dissatisfaction over the handling of the Covid pandemic, front runner Kono is currently being seen as holding a brownie point over Kishida owing to the former’s stand on same sex marriages.
Currently, the LDP leadership is keen to focus on conducting a policy speech and question-and-answer sessions ahead of the parliamentary polls that are slated to be conducted latest by November 14. Hiroshi Moriyama, the LDP chief for Diet affairs, pronounced it at a recently concluded meeting. The political campaigning for the Diet elections will commence at earliest by October 26. In the event of delay in the date of holding polls, the campaigning will kick start from November 2. The last permissible date for holding elections stands as November 14.
As of now, the Japanese lawmakers are keen on meeting the set deadlines to ensure that their fiscal policy planning for the year 2022 is well in place before the next year commences. Meanwhile, the common agenda voiced by the contestants include effectively battling Covid19 and bringing about reduction in income disparity.
