{"id":76257,"date":"2026-02-06T11:19:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T02:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/06\/sana-mania-grips-japan-as-ultra-conservative-takaichi-expected-to-secure-election-landslide"},"modified":"2026-02-06T11:19:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T02:19:57","slug":"sana-mania-grips-japan-as-ultra-conservative-takaichi-expected-to-secure-election-landslide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76257","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sana-mania\u2019 grips Japan as ultra-conservative Takaichi expected to secure election landslide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The country\u2019s first female PM is the object of a personality cult revolving around everything from her outfits and snacks to her favourite pink pen <\/p>\n<p>Just eight months ago, Japan\u2019s ruling party appeared to have reached the edge of the electoral abyss. It had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jul\/20\/apan-pm-election-result-exit-polls-predict-loss-of-upper-house\">lost a parliamentary majority<\/a> for the second time in 15 months; its MPs were implicated in a long-running <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/apr\/28\/anger-at-party-funding-scandal-in-japan-threatens-to-bring-down-pm-kishida\">slush fund scandal<\/a>; the then prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, was the target of factional plotting.<\/p>\n<p>But as voters prepare to brave freezing temperatures in this Sunday\u2019s lower house elections, the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) is expected to pull off a momentous victory. And the party\u2019s recovery from the disappointment of last year is largely down to one woman.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/06\/sana-mania-grips-japan-as-ultra-conservative-takaichi-expected-to-secure-election-landslide\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The country\u2019s 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\u2019s ruling party appeared to have reached the edge of the electoral abyss. It&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4825,"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":[41,88,3455,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan","category-sanae-takaichi","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76257","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\/4825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76258,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76257\/revisions\/76258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}