{"id":74458,"date":"2025-09-25T13:48:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/sep\/25\/japan-leadership-next-pm-shinjiro-koizumi-sanae-takaichi-liberal-democratic-party-debate"},"modified":"2025-09-25T13:48:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:48:17","slug":"generational-change-or-gender-breakthrough-whoever-japans-next-pm-is-will-have-a-mountain-to-climb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74458","title":{"rendered":"Generational change or gender breakthrough, whoever Japan\u2019s next PM is will have a mountain to climb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two candidates have emerged as favourites to lead Japan\u2019s Liberal Democratic Party, ahead of the party vote next week<\/p>\n<p>The next leader of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/japan\">Japan<\/a>\u2019s ruling party will either be the country\u2019s first female prime minister or its youngest leader since the war. But the significance of those milestones will be quickly lost in the party\u2019s attempts to rebuild after two bruising elections that have cast doubt over the future of one of the world\u2019s most successful political machines.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the five candidates vying to replace Shigeru ishiba \u2013 who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/sep\/07\/japan-pm-shigeru-ishiba-resign\">announced his resignation<\/a> earlier this month \u2013 as the next president of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) have emerged as clear favourites in what analysts are describing as a last-ditch attempt to unify a party battered by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/apr\/28\/anger-at-party-funding-scandal-in-japan-threatens-to-bring-down-pm-kishida\">major funding scandal<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/19\/runaway-rice-prices-spell-danger-for-japans-prime-minister-as-elections-loom\">cost-of-living crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/sep\/25\/japan-leadership-next-pm-shinjiro-koizumi-sanae-takaichi-liberal-democratic-party-debate\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two candidates have emerged as favourites to lead Japan\u2019s Liberal Democratic Party, ahead of the party vote next weekThe next leader of Japan\u2019s ruling party will either be the country\u2019s first female prime minister or its youngest leader since the war. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88,491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan","category-migration"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74459,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74458\/revisions\/74459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}