Fumio Kishida set to become next Japanese prime minister

Former Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida came out victorious Wednesday in the ruling party’s leadership elections, effectively putting him on track to become the nation’s next prime minister. 

Members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) selected Kishida in a runoff election, beating out his main rival, Japanese COVID-19 vaccine minister Taro Kono, who had been leading in recent national polls. 

Kishida, a moderate LDP member, finished just one vote ahead of Kono in the first round before winning a landslide 257-170 victory in the second contest, according to The Associated Press. 

The new party leader is set to replace Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who announced earlier this month he would not be seeking reelection after only a single year in office. 

Kishida used his victory speech Wednesday to discuss the importance of addressing multiple “national crises,” including new waves of COVID-19 cases, a pandemic-induced economic downturn and the Japanese population’s declining birth rate, the AP reported. 

The new party leader also called for the creation of a “virtuous cycle” of growth and wealth distribution, arguing, “We can’t achieve strong growth if wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small group of people,” according to Reuters. 

“We will strive to achieve economic growth and distribution” of wealth, he added. 

In a Kyodo News poll released earlier this month, Kono led in popularity, with 31.9 percent of respondents favoring the vaccine minister as Suga’s replacement. 

Meanwhile, just 18.8 percent of respondents selected Kishida, and 26.6 percent threw their support behind former Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba. 

Suga said earlier this month while announcing that he would not seek reelection that he has decided to focus his energy on addressing ongoing responses to the pandemic. 

“Working on Covid countermeasures and election activities requires a tremendous amount of energy, so I decided that I cannot work on both and should choose one of them,” he said at the time. 

Reuters reported Monday that officials in Japan are expecting to end Japan’s state of emergency by the end of this month as COVID-19 cases have begun to gradually decline following a recent surge in infections.