Koizumi Declares Candidacy for LDP Leadership Race

Tokyo, Sept. 20 (Jiji Press)–Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi officially announced his decision Saturday to run in the Oct. 4 leadership election at Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Unveiling his candidacy at a press conference in Tokyo, Koizumi, 44, said that he will “take up the challenge with determination to lead the rebuilding of the LDP.” Koizumi said that, if he is elected prime minister, he will “immediately consider drawing up economic measures to fight inflation and submit a draft supplementary state budget for fiscal 2025 to an extraordinary session” of the Diet, the country’s parliament. The lawmaker of the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, said he will scrap the provisional add-on gasoline tax rate right away. He also stressed his intention to work steadily on raising the minimum taxable income level, a step already agreed on between the ruling and opposition sides, in fiscal 2026 and later. Koizumi set a target of increasing people’s average wages by 1 million yen by fiscal 2030. He showed a negative stance on giving cash handouts to the public, which was an LDP policy pledge in July’s election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet. “Even if we want to do it, it’s difficult in reality,” he said. Now that the LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, have lost their combined majority in both chambers of the Diet, the candidate said, “I will call on opposition parties to hold policy talks with us in various fields,” adding, “I hope to deepen discussions on the framework of the administration.” He did not clarify whether he would visit war-related Yasukuni Shrine, saying, “I will decide appropriately if I am elected prime minister.” The Shinto shrine in Tokyo is regarded as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism by other Asian nations such as China and South Korea because it enshrines Class-A World War II criminals along with the war dead. The race to select a new LDP president to succeed Shigeru Ishiba, the country’s outgoing prime minister, is scheduled to kick off officially on Monday. Koizumi, from the No. 11 constituency in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, has been elected to the Lower House six times. With his high name recognition and communication skills, Koizumi is expected to be a major candidate in the LDP race. In last year’s LDP presidential election, he finished third out of the nine candidates in the first vote and could not reach the runoff. The upcoming party election is expected to have five candidates, including Koizumi. The other four are Takayuki Kobayashi, 50, and Sanae Takaichi, 64, both former economic security ministers, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, 64, and former LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi, 69. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]