TOKYO
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi told supporters in his constituency on Saturday that he intends to run in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race to pick the successor for outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, according to an attendee at the gathering.
“The LDP needs to be reunited as one,” the 44-year-old was quoted as saying in the closed-door meeting in Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo, apparently referring to the rift that has emerged over whether Ishiba should resign to take responsibility over the ruling coalition’s crushing setback in the House of Councillors election in July.
“I would like to become a force to move policies forward,” he also said.
The move means that the race to pick the next LDP president, slated for Oct 4, will likely be contested among Koizumi and four others — former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and another former economic security minister, Takayuki Kobayashi.
Koizumi, the son of Junichiro Koizumi, a highly popular former prime minister, had told a press conference on Friday that he would “make a final decision by listening to the voices” of people in his constituency in Kanagawa Prefecture, adding the LDP, in power almost continuously since 1955, is in a “crisis.”
Under Ishiba, the LDP and its junior coalition ally, Komeito party, lost their majority in both chambers of the parliament.
In the previous LDP leadership race last year that Ishiba won, Koizumi garnered more support from lawmakers than any of the other eight candidates but failed to advance to the runoff after votes from rank-and-file members saw him finish third.
