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Lawmakers of Japan’s ruling LDP party begin vote to elect new chair

Three candidates are seen as frontrunners to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida: former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who is the son of a former popular prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi; former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba; and Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi

TOKYO, September 27. /TASS/. Parliament members from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democractic Party (LDP) began their vote to elect the party’s new chairperson, who will also become the country’s new prime minister.

The vote, currently livestreamed on the party’s YouTube channel, is limited to members of the LDP faction in the parliament and to approximately 1.05 million grassroots members of the governing party. LDP lawmakers will cast 368 votes in the first round, with an equal number of votes proportionally distributed to reflect the vote among the rank-and-file members. Grassroots members have already voted, but the results will be announced simultaneously with the outcome of the parliamentary vote.

In all, 736 ‘votes’ are to be allocated. The procedure is expected to take about an hour and a half.

A candidate needs to get a simple majority of votes to be declared winner, but this is unlikely to happen in the first round this year. In this case, a runoff will be held among all members of the Japanese parliament, with only 47 votes allocated to regional party offices.

Three candidates are seen as frontrunners to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida: former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who is the son of a former popular prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi; former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba; and Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters in mid-August that he would not run in the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s leadership election and would step down after the vote. The announcement was made as the popular approval for his government plunged to record lows amid a series of scandals.

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