The country’s first female PM is the object of a personality cult revolving around everything from her outfits and snacks to her favourite pink pen
Just eight months ago, Japan’s ruling party appeared to have reached the edge of the electoral abyss. It had lost a parliamentary majority for the second time in 15 months; its MPs were implicated in a long-running slush fund scandal; the then prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, was the target of factional plotting.
But as voters prepare to brave freezing temperatures in this Sunday’s lower house elections, the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) is expected to pull off a momentous victory. And the party’s recovery from the disappointment of last year is largely down to one woman.
When the LDP’s conservative wing forced a leadership election to replace the embattled Ishiba in October last year, many expected his ally Shinjiro Koizumi – the young, telegenic son of a previous prime minister – to win.
Instead, Japan’s party of government for most of the past seven decades took a gamble on his ultra-conservative rival, Sanae Takaichi, installing her as the country’s first female prime minister. If opinion polls are correct, that gamble is about to pay off in ways even her strongest allies could not have imagined.
