Explainer: How Will Japan’s Ruling Party Select the Next Prime Minister?

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is set to elect a new president on Friday, who will take over from outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, leading a party that has been in power for the majority of the last seventy years.

Voting Process Overview

The election follows two weeks of debates and campaign events throughout Japan, culminating in a gathering of the nine candidates and LDP lawmakers at the party headquarters in Tokyo. As the LDP holds a majority in parliament, the winner of the election will automatically become the next prime minister.

Lawmakers from the party will cast 368 votes in the initial round, with an equivalent number of votes allocated to rank-and-file members, who gathered the previous day. In the 2021 leadership election, there were approximately 1.13 million registered members in the party.

To win the leadership position, a candidate must secure a simple majority. If no candidate achieves this in the first round, a runoff election will take place between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes. In this second round, lawmakers will again have one vote each, but the contribution from rank-and-file members will be reduced to 47 votes, one for each prefecture in Japan.

In the rare event of a tie, the winner will be determined by drawing lots, a method that has never been needed in a leadership election, though it was used in 2010 for a different party decision.

Post-Election Process

Following the party vote, Kishida and his ministers are expected to resign, likely on Monday. Parliament will then convene to formally elect the new party leader as the successor, who will proceed to announce a new cabinet and appoint key officials within the LDP.

The incoming prime minister might also consider calling a snap general election to seek a national mandate, with at least one prominent candidate, Shinjiro Koizumi, indicating such an intention. Reports suggest that these elections could occur as soon as October 27.