Former Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba will be the country’s next prime minister after winning the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership vote last September 27. The 67-year-old politician defeated Minister of State for Economic Security Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s potential first female prime minister, according to AFP.
Ishiba, 65, has stood for the presidency before, notably in 2012 to Shinzo Abe, who went on to become Japan’s longest-serving leader and was tragically assassinated.
Ishiba was born on February 4, 1957, in Tokyo, the son of a career government official, Jiro Ishiba, who would rise through the ministries to Governor of Tottori Prefecture and later assume the Minister for Home Affairs portfolio. Shigeru graduated from Keio University in 1979 with a law degree and joined Mitsui Bank before entering politics in the early 1980s.
In 1986, Ishiba was elected to the House of Representatives as an LDP candidate in the Tottori at-large district and, at age 29, became the youngest member of the house. He served as Defence Minister in Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s cabinet from 2007 to 2008 and then as Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Minister under Tarō Asō from 2008 to 2009.
Overcome with emotion, Ishiba had to wipe away tears from his eyes as he bowed to supporters after being declared the winner in Tokyo’s LDP headquarters. In a short speech, he vowed:
“I will do my best to believe in the people, to speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and to make this country safe and secure so that everyone can live with a smile once again.”
The huge regional security challenges left on the table for Ishiba, an incoming prime minister, include an assertive China, a strengthening relationship between China and Russia, and unquashed missile tests by North Korea. At home, he should energize Japan’s economy while the central bank shifts away from years of monetary easing that have been weakening the yen.
