Japan’s Governing Party Selects New Prime Minister

Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister known for his plainspoken opinions, will replace Fumio Kishida next week.

The elite power brokers of Japan’s governing party appeared to take public sentiment into account on Friday when they chose Shigeru Ishiba, 67, to become the next prime minister of Japan.

Mr. Ishiba, a former defense minister who has long been popular with rank-and-file members of the Liberal Democratic Party but less favored by parliamentary lawmakers, had run for the party leadership four times before finally attaining victory.

In a runoff with Sanae Takaichi, Mr. Ishiba, who is known for his plainspoken opinions and keen interest in military equipment, defeated Ms. Takaichi 215 to 194 in voting at the party’s headquarters in Tokyo. He will take over as prime minister next Tuesday, replacing Fumio Kishida.

Mr. Kishida, who presided over an expansion of Japan’s defense budget and a rapprochement with South Korea during his three years as prime minister, announced in August that he would resign after months of low approval ratings related to public dissatisfaction with inflation and his handling of a series of political finance scandals.

Hinting at the public’s loss of trust in the party, Mr. Ishiba said in his acceptance speech that he wanted to return to an L.D.P. “that can hold free and open discussions,” and would be “fair and impartial” and “humble.”

While past leadership contests have been staid affairs with a sense of preordination, Friday’s party election held genuine drama. Ms. Takaichi, who would have been Japan’s first female prime minister, pulled ahead in the first round of voting, in which both lawmakers and rank-and-file dues-paying members were represented. But Mr. Ishiba, a somewhat anti-establishment candidate who has criticized previous administrations, was able to round up the lawmakers needed to clinch the final vote.

It was the most hotly contested race in years, with a total of nine candidates vying for the leadership. The contenders included two women, as well as three former foreign ministers, and two rivals in their 40s, a novelty in a party long ruled by aging men.

The political factions that dominated the party until recently had been dissolved in an effort to persuade voters that patronage would not dictate the party’s choices, making the race harder than usual to handicap.

The Liberal Democratic Party has governed Japan for all but four years since 1955. Despite dissatisfaction over inflation, a slowing economy, labor shortages and the growing pressures of an aging population, voters have shown little inclination to vote the party out of power. In policy pronouncements, the candidates did not offer hugely different visions of how they would govern.

Earlier in the campaign, polls seemed to favor Shinjiro Koizumi, 43, a former environment minister and the son of Junichiro Koizumi, a retired prime minister. He would have been Japan’s youngest prime minister, but the governing party lawmakers did not seem ready for a generational change.

Mr. Ishiba, a former defense and agricultural minister, comes from a rural constituency. He was first elected in 1986, when he was 29, at that time the youngest member of the House of Representatives.

Analysts said that because Ms. Takaichi, a right-leaning disciple of the slain former prime minister Shinzo Abe, might have driven more independent voters to the opposition, Mr. Ishiba appeared a safer choice to lawmakers worried about keeping their jobs in any coming general election. In remarks on Friday night, Mr. Ishiba declined to say when he might call such an election.

The largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, this week elected Yoshihiko Noda, a former prime minister and a right-of-center moderate, as their leader. “L.D.P. lawmakers understand they need to balance against” the opposition, said Shigenobu Tamura, an independent political analyst who formerly worked for the Liberal Democrats.

During Mr. Ishiba’s leadership campaign, he said he would push for rural revitalization as well as eventually phase out the country’s nuclear power plants, many of which have been mothballed since a 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown.

He offered few prescriptions for how to improve Japan’s economy or address its demographic challenges, with close to a third of the population now over 65. In remarks after his election, he promised to extend a “new capitalism,” invoking a phrase that Mr. Kishida often used but never defined precisely.

Mr. Ishiba, who has spoken about the need to engage China, also said during the campaign that he would like to form an Asian version of NATO to ensure regional security. He said he wanted to renegotiate Japan’s alliance with the United States to make it more “equal.”

Political analysts said it would be difficult to alter an alliance that has been built up since the end of World War II, and which offers Japan growing military collaboration as well as protection from rising regional threats.

“He wanted to present himself as a more independent or autonomous leader who can negotiate with the United States, but this is a kind of rhetoric,” said Jiro Yamaguchi, a political scientist at Hosei University in Tokyo. “I don’t think he can make a big difference in the relationship between the U.S. and Japan.”

Mr. Ishiba’s skepticism about that alliance makes him an outlier among Japanese leaders. Mr. Ishiba believes “it’s an asymmetric alliance,” said Tobias Harris, founder and principal of Japan Foresight Risk Advisory, a consultancy in Washington.

Depending on the outcome of the U.S. election, Mr. Ishiba’s views could prove contentious. Donald J. Trump, if re-elected, might revive complaints he had during his first term, when he criticized allies like Japan for not doing their share, as he saw it, to defend themselves.

Mr. Ishiba “is someone who is going to speak up and talk directly to the United States,” Mr. Harris said. “And what that means if you get a second Trump administration is anyone’s guess, because you have two leaders, both of whom think the alliance is entirely unfair but for different reasons.”

Some women’s rights advocates were relieved that Ms. Takaichi did not become Japan’s first woman prime minister. Her election “would give an impression that Japan made a step forward” in gender equality, said Momoko Nojo, founder of No Youth No Japan, a youth advocacy group. “But in reality, she is very conservative and would try to maintain values such as the patriarchal system.”

Kiuko Notoya contributed reporting from Seoul.

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