By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-09-27 06:43:45 | Updated at 2024-09-30 13:22:18
3 days ago
Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba will become Japan’s next prime minister after winning the ruling party’s leadership vote on Friday, the official count showed.
Ishiba, 67, beat hawkish Sanae Takaichi, who would have been the country’s first ever woman leader, in a run-off.
Ishiba faces down regional security threats, from an increasingly assertive China and its deepening ties with Russia to North Korea’s banned missile tests.
At home, he will be tasked with breathing life into the economy, as the central bank moves away from decades of monetary easing that has slashed the value of the yen.
LDP presidents are in office for three years and can serve up to three straight terms. Unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is not running for re-election.
