Japan's LDP leadership contest is turning out to be a two-horse race between Sanae Takaichi and Shinjiro Koizumi. Tobias Harris, Founder and Principal of Japan Foresight explains why he believes Koizumi stands a better chance this time around.

Tokyo

Koizumi is currently viewed as the front-runner in the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) leadership race, according to a Japan analyst. He holds a significant lead among LDP supporters, bolstered by endorsements from influential lawmakers such as Finance Minister Kato Katsunobu. Koizumi's efforts to unify the party and appeal to a broad base have strengthened his position.

Takaichi, another prominent candidate, faces obstacles including the loss of key supporters in recent elections and uncertainty over factional backing. The analyst notes that generational change within the party and divided conservative votes may further hinder her chances. The LDP is prioritizing internal stability and effective leadership as it navigates complex domestic and international challenges.

Koizumi leads the pack in LDP's leadership race says Japan analyst

I think heading into this two-week race, Koizumi is probably the front-runner, even more than Takaichi, and I think there's a few reasons for that. One, when you look at opinion polls, not the overall opinion polls, where Takaichi has had a slight lead with the public as a whole, Koizumi, when you look at LDP supporters, he actually, in a number of polls, actually has a double-digit lead over Takaichi. So that's something, if he can reverse some of his underperformance in that category last year, that's going to make a big difference. The other thing, we know that he's got a lot of strength among lawmakers. We see that he brought in Kato Katsunobu, the finance minister who actually has a lot of right-wing connections. That's a big endorsement for him. Kato ran last year, but Kato threw his weight behind Koizumi early on. He's running his campaign. And that really tells you that Koizumi's trying to moderate his image and really wants to bring all parts of the party together to support his candidacy. And that really, I think, gives him an edge heading into this race over Takaichi. So he's managed to, I guess, bring in the right-wing of the LDP, but I mean, what about Takaichi Sanai, though? I mean, a lot of people look at her and go, she's the second coming of Shinzo Abe. So it's not even that Koizumi has to bring in the right-wing. He just has to pull off enough votes from the right-wing that basically he cuts into Takaichi's support. I mean, Takaichi, I think she enters this race. There's a few obstacles, I think, that she has to repeating her performance last year, where she lost by a very slight margin in the second round against Ishiba after winning in the first round. First of all, a number of her supporters from last year's election lost in the lower house election last year and in the upper house election last year. And in fact, I think her part of the party, the right-wing of the party, was disproportionately affected by those electoral defeats. So that already puts her, I think, in a bit of a hole relative to where she was last year. Another factor in her performance last year was that she got Aso Taro to support her. At the last minute, he threw his faction behind her. That, I think, really pumped her numbers up. There's no guarantee that she's going to get Aso's support this year. Aso, I think, has been much more cagey about where he's going to go. Last year, a lot of it was that he just did not want Ishiba to win and was determined to prevent that. This year, I don't think, I think he just wants to win. He wants to see the party come together. That does not necessarily mean that he's going to back Takaichi. The third thing, Kobayashi is running again. He's this, you know, young conservative. He's got a lot of young conservatives around him who want generational change just within the conservative part of the party. They see Takaichi. You know, she was close to Abe. She's been around for a long time. They think it's also time for a change. So she's going to, he's going to divide that conservative vote a little more. And the final thing is that, yes, she's polling well, but it's hard to see how much better she can poll than she did last year. And I don't think she's going to pull in enough party supporter votes to make up for what she seems to have lost among the lawmaker votes. So all of that suggests that it's going to be really hard for her to replicate the performance she had last year. Tobias Lynn here. Great to see you again. As you were just saying, in terms of Koizumi being perhaps that de facto front runner in this particular race last year, so exactly 12 months ago, basically, we were also talking about Koizumi being a favorite as well. But as the campaign went on, there were question marks raised. Indeed, his own father said that he didn't believe that Koizumi was ready to become the prime minister. This was just 12 months ago. And I note, of course, that he is taking on the foreign minister role dealing with the rice crisis. But in your mind, is he ready to be the prime minister of the fourth largest economy at a very complex time? I mean, I think it's absolutely a huge job. And I think this is the thing the LDP in general is struggling with, that they need the next leader to do a lot of different things. And it's really hard to find one candidate in this field or really in the party as a whole who can do all of those things, because they've got to get out of this political hole that they've done for themselves. They've got to find a way to stabilize their control of the diet so the government really can get things done. And frankly, you've got to navigate a pretty complicated global situation, complicated relationship with the United States, challenges from China, maintaining relations with South Korea. I mean, there's a lot going on right now. And finding someone who can do all of those things and also maybe get the public excited is, I think, really difficult. I think, frankly, though, it does feel like the LDP is going to prioritize fixing its own situation, getting its own house in order as a way to stabilize everything else, that if the LDP feels confident, feels like it has control of the government, then it can really start feeling energetic. You can really start getting the kind of dynamic leadership that the LDP has been looking for, I think, for a few years now. And then hope that you can find a way to win the next election to get a stable majority. And so I suspect that's what they're prioritizing now. As far as Koizumi himself, clearly he has performed fairly well in the agricultural minister role. I think, as he acknowledged in his press conference the other day, that he learned some lessons in terms of how to approach just appealing to voters, how to communicate with the LDP's voters, how to communicate with the public. Clearly, I think we saw in his messaging he's trimmed maybe some of the bolder edges that maybe might have alienated some LDP lawmakers. He really seems to be wanting to use his brand, his image, to pull the party together, to get the party focused on listening to the public. I mean, that was really the thing that he kept driving home over and over again in his press conference Saturday. We need to listen to the public. We need to get back to what worked for us in the past. He really hearkened back to the time when the LDP was last in opposition, and they were really focused on delivering for voters. And so to that extent, I think he gets the problem. I think he gets the challenges the party faces. It's just a question, will he be able to execute if he wins?

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