The Japanese government, headed by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, resigned in full force before the election of a new prime minister, NHK reports. Isiba has been in this post for a little more than a year.
Elections will be held in the lower house of Parliament on October 21. The day before the vote, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and the Japan Renewal Society agreed to form a new coalition.
This step provided the necessary parliamentary majority for the election of LDP leader Sanae Takaichi. She may become the first woman in this position in the history of Japan.
In October 2024, the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito lost their parliamentary majority in the lower, more influential House of Representatives for the first time since 2012. In July 2025, elections to the upper house of parliament were held in Japan, and the ruling LDP again lost its majority.
After that, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan elected 64-year-old Takaichi, one of the most experienced politicians of the party, as its new chairman. She advocates the revision of the pacifist Constitution and the strengthening of the army.
Takaichi graduated from Kobe University and the Matsushita Institute of Public Administration and Management. In 1987, she won a grant and moved to the United States, where she worked in the office of Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. In 1989, she returned to Japan and was first elected to the lower house of the Japanese parliament in 1993.
Takaichi received her first ministerial position in 2006. She was appointed to several positions at once: Minister of Science and Technology Policy, Minister of Innovation, Minister of Youth Affairs and Gender Equality, Minister of Food Safety, and Minister of Okinawa and the Northern Territories (as the Japanese government calls the Southern Kuril Islands).
After the nomination of Takaichi in Japan's ruling coalition collapsed. Before that, the Komeito party had already demanded that its senior coalition partner restrict the channels of political donations from corporations and organizations.