Nationalist Sanae Takaichi was appointed Prime Minister of Japan this Tuesday, October 21, becoming the first woman to hold this position, thanks to a parliamentary coalition formed the day before, after last-minute negotiations.
The Lower House of the Japanese Parliament nominated Takaichi, 64, in the first vote and his appointment will be made official when he meets with Emperor Naruhito later this Tuesday.
The fifth leader of the archipelago in the same number of years faces a delicate political situation in the country, but also a dense international agenda, whose first highlight is the visit to Japan by US President Donald Trump, next week.
On October 4, Sanae Takaichi won the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), the right-wing conservative formation in power almost uninterruptedly since 1955, but which in recent months has lost its majority in both chambers of the Japanese Parliament due, in particular, to financial scandals.
The PLD’s traditional ally, the centrist Komeito party, abandoned the coalition in force since 1999, upset by the scandals and Sanae Takaichi’s conservative views.
To guarantee the election as head of the Government and succeed the outgoing Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, Takaichi formed an alliance on Monday with the Japanese Innovation Party (Ishin), a center-right reformist formation.
The new leader of the Government of Japan, an admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed the “Iron Lady”, promised an Executive with a “Scandinavian-style” number of women, in contrast to just two in her predecessor’s team.
One of them is expected to be Satsuki Katayama, former Minister of Regional Revitalization, who will occupy the position of Minister of Finance, according to the Japanese press.
Japan is ranked 118th out of 148 in the World Economic Forum’s 2025 report on gender disparity and the lower house of the Japanese Parliament is an example of this, with just 15% women.
Takaichi wants to bring a new sensitivity to the difficulties related to women’s health to the public policy agenda and does not hesitate to speak openly about her symptoms related to menopause.
However, her political positions on gender equality place her to the right of an already conservative PLD. For example, the new head of the Executive opposes the revision of a law that forces couples to use the same surname and supports an imperial succession reserved for men.
Takaichi will also face the fight against Japan’s demographic decline and the recovery of the world’s fourth largest economy.
Furthermore, the coalition with Ishin represents 231 seats in Parliament, below the 233 needed for an absolute majority, meaning it will have to negotiate with other parties to govern.
Sanae Takaichi has already spoken out in favor of increasing public spending to revive the economy, following the example of her mentor, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and her victory boosted the Tokyo Stock Exchange to reach record levels, mainly due to the “fiscal dove” reputation, with companies betting on a new cycle of tax cuts.
On the foreign front, Takaichi also moderated his speech about China and, last week, prudently refrained from visiting the Yasukuni shrine, a symbol of Japan’s militaristic past, aggressive against Japan’s neighbors.
At an internal level, finally, the first female leader of the PLD and inherently the first head of the Japanese Government’s main challenge is to recover her party’s popularity after a series of electoral setbacks that saw the rise of Sanseito, a small populist party that describes immigration as a “silent invasion”.