Sanae Takaichi
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Sanae Takaichi, born March 7th, 1961, a prominent figure in Japanese politics, has risen to lead the Liberal Democratic Party since 2025. Her journey through the political landscape includes a tenure in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003, and again from 2005 onwards. Under the premierships of Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida, she held several significant ministerial posts. Should she be elected Prime Minister by the National Diet, Takaichi would make history as Japan's first female Prime Minister, and the first hailing from Nara Prefecture.
Nurtured in Nara, Takaichi's academic path led her to Kobe University. Before embarking on her political career, she honed her skills as an author, legislative aide, and broadcaster. Initially elected to the House of Representatives as an independent in 1993, she joined the Liberal Democratic Party in 1996. A protégé of Shinzo Abe, Takaichi played a key role in his administration, most notably as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. She made her first bid for the LDP leadership in 2021, securing third place before the runoff. From 2022 to 2024, she served as Minister of State for Economic Security under Fumio Kishida. Her second attempt at party leadership in 2024 saw her win the first round, only to narrowly lose the runoff to Shigeru Ishiba. In 2025, Takaichi ran for party president once more, triumphing in both rounds and defeating Shinjirō Koizumi to become party president.
Her political ideology is characterized by a conservative and often ultraconservative stance. Domestically, she champions the continuation of Abenomics, while opposing same-sex marriage, the recognition of separate surnames for spouses, and female succession to the Imperial throne. In foreign policy, Takaichi advocates for revising Article 9 of Japan's Constitution, which renounces the use of military force, and for strengthening the US-Japan alliance. She is considered pro-Taiwan and a hawk on China. A member of the ultranationalist organization Nippon Kaigi, she has argued that Japanese war crimes have been exaggerated and regularly visits the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Born and raised in Nara Prefecture, Takaichi's father was employed by an automotive firm affiliated with Toyota, while her mother served in the Nara Prefectural Police. She graduated from Nara Prefectural Unebi High School. Despite qualifying for admission to Keio and Waseda universities, her parents' refusal to fund her education away from home or at private institutions, due to her gender, led her to commute six hours daily to attend Kobe University. After graduation, she enrolled in The Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. In her youth, Takaichi was a musician, playing drums and piano, with a passion for heavy metal music and motorcycles, even owning a Kawasaki Z400.
With sponsorship from The Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, she moved to the United States in 1987, serving as a congressional fellow for Democratic congresswoman Pat Schroeder. Upon her return to Japan in 1989, her expertise in American politics garnered media attention, leading to her authorship of books based on her experiences. She then transitioned to television, co-hosting TV Asahi's "Kodawari TV Pre-Stage" with Renhō in March 1989.
Takaichi's political career began in earnest in 1993 when she was first elected to the Japanese parliament's lower house, the House of Representatives, as an independent. The following year, she joined the minor "Liberals" party, led by Koji Kakizawa, which soon merged into the New Frontier Party. In 1996, Takaichi, running as a sanctioned candidate from the New Frontier Party, was re-elected to the House of Representatives. However, with the New Frontier Party facing national defeat, she accepted recruitment from LDP Secretary-General Koichi Kato and joined the LDP on November 5th. This party switch, just two months after winning with anti-LDP votes, drew heavy criticism from her former party members. Within the LDP, Takaichi became affiliated with the Mori Faction and served as Parliamentary Vice Minister for the Ministry of International Trade and Industry under the Keizō Obuchi cabinet, also chairing the Education and Science Committee. In the 2000 House of Representatives election, she secured her third term, topping the LDP's proportional representation list. In 2002, she was appointed Senior Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry under Junichiro Koizumi. The 2003 Japanese general election saw her defeated in the Nara 1st district by Democratic Party lawmaker Sumio Mabuchi. She relocated to the nearby city of Ikoma and won a seat representing the Nara 2nd district in the 2005 general election. While out of the Diet in 2004, she took up a position in the economics faculty at Kinki University. Takaichi led an LDP internal group opposing legislation that would allow married couples to retain separate surnames, arguing it would undermine Japan's traditional family system. As communications chief, she also sparked controversy with remarks suggesting TV broadcasters could have their licenses revoked for airing politically biased programs, a statement widely condemned as an attack on free speech.
During the first Abe government, Takaichi served as Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy, Minister of State for Innovation, Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Gender Equality, and Minister of State for Food Safety. In August 2007, she was the sole Abe cabinet member to join former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in visiting Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of the end of World War II.
Following the LDP's victory in the 2012 general election, Takaichi was appointed head of the party's Policy Research Council. In January 2013, she advocated for Abe to issue an "Abe Statement" to supersede the Murayama Statement, which had apologized for the damages Imperial Japan inflicted on its annexed nations. On September 3rd, 2014, Takaichi was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, replacing Yoshitaka Shindō. Shortly after her cabinet appointment, a photograph surfaced showing her with Kazunari Yamada, the leader of the National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party, a small neo-Nazi group in Japan. She denied any association with Yamada, stating she would not have accepted the picture had she known his background. She was also shown promoting a controversial book praising Adolf Hitler's electoral talents in 1994. Takaichi was among the three cabinet members to visit the Yasukuni Shrine in 2014, became the first sitting cabinet member to attend its autumn festival in 2016, and was one of four ministers who visited on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in August 2020. In the December 2014 general election, she secured an overwhelming 96,000-vote majority in her district. In February 2016, Takaichi commented that the government could suspend broadcasters airing politically biased content, a remark that prompted the U.S. State Department to express concerns about increasing government pressure on critical and independent media. An electoral redistricting in 2017, overseen by Takaichi as internal affairs minister, eliminated one of Nara Prefecture's districts, potentially pitting her against her former rival, Mabuchi, once again. She was replaced by Seiko Noda on August 3rd, 2017, but returned to the Internal Affairs and Communications post on September 11th, 2019, replacing Masatoshi Ishida. Among her initiatives, she pressured NHK to reduce viewing fees and reform its governance, and oversaw the distribution of COVID-19 pandemic relief funds.
In August 2021, Takaichi declared her intention to challenge incumbent Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga for the LDP presidency in the scheduled September 29th election. On September 3rd, Suga announced he would not seek re-election, and the following day, news outlets reported that former Prime Minister Abe had shifted his support to Takaichi. Suga himself backed rival candidate Taro Kono. Takaichi was described as "a favorite of conservatives with hawkish views on defense and diplomacy."
On March 2nd, 2023, Hiroyuki Konishi, a Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan-affiliated House of Councillors member, claimed to have obtained a government document suggesting the former Abe administration may have sought to interfere with broadcasting freedom by pressuring critical broadcasters. Takaichi, as internal affairs minister at the time, denied the document's authenticity, calling it "fabricated" and vowing to resign if proven genuine. Days later, on March 7th, the Internal Affairs ministry confirmed the document's creation by ministerial officials, prompting opposition calls for Takaichi's resignation. She maintained her stance that the remarks attributed to her were fabricated and called on Konishi to prove the document's authenticity.
Takaichi was a contender in the September 2024 election to succeed Kishida as LDP president. Among nine candidates, she emerged as a frontrunner alongside Shigeru Ishiba and Shinjiro Koizumi. Ultimately, she secured first place in the first round but was defeated by Ishiba in the runoff. Ishiba offered Takaichi the position of chairman of the LDP General Council, an offer she declined. In November, she assumed leadership of the LDP's newly organized research commission on public safety and measures against terrorism and cybercrime.
Following Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's resignation, Takaichi announced her candidacy for LDP president in the ensuing leadership election on September 18th, 2025. Early polls indicated Takaichi and agricultural minister Shinjirō Koizumi as frontrunners. As campaigning progressed, Takaichi and Koizumi remained nearly tied in opinion polls. Takaichi softened her political message during the campaign, describing herself as a "moderate conservative." She declined to comment on her previous stated intention to visit Yasukuni Shrine as Prime Minister. The election, held on October 4th, saw Takaichi receive 183 votes (31.07%) in the first round, the highest of any candidate. Koizumi followed with 164 votes (27.84%). With no candidate securing a majority, a runoff was held between Takaichi and Koizumi. Takaichi won the runoff with 54.25% of the vote, becoming the first woman to hold the post of LDP president.
Takaichi is a staunch conservative and nationalist, a member of the ultranationalist organization Nippon Kaigi. Taro Kono, another LDP minister, has described her as being on the far right of the political spectrum within the LDP. Deutsche Welle and the South China Morning Post have also labeled her as far-right, while Time magazine characterized her as ultraconservative in 2021. She is a regular visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine, a site that has drawn controversy from China and South Korea. Takaichi often cites Margaret Thatcher as a role model, earning her the moniker "Iron Lady," much like Thatcher.
Like her fellow candidates in the 2025 LDP presidential election, Takaichi has demonstrated a hard-line stance on immigration. The New York Times noted that during her leadership campaign, she "seized on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment," advocating for "tighter restrictions on immigration" and employing "anti-immigration rhetoric." She supports the adoption of a "Comprehensive Economic Security Act" aimed at preventing foreign students and engineers from nations like China from taking Japanese technology back to their home countries for military purposes.
Takaichi is known for favoring proactive government spending, advocating for substantial investment in critical strategic sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, nuclear fusion, biotechnology, and defense, which she terms "crisis management investment." She supports maintaining Shinzo Abe's Abenomics policy. During the 2025 LDP leadership election, she indicated a willingness to consider funding economic stimulus plans through bond issuance to manage national debt. In her 2021 bid for LDP leader, she presented a three-pronged "Plan to Strengthen the Japanese Economy," also known as "New Abenomics" or "Sanaenomics." This plan comprises expansionary monetary policy, flexible fiscal spending in response to crises, and bold investment in crisis management and growth. The plan emphasizes large-scale fiscal spending and the development of legal systems and new economic bonds. She has also advocated for tax increases on corporations, considering a rise in taxes on cash deposits over retained earnings, estimating in September 2021 that a 1% tax on corporate cash deposits could increase tax revenue by 2 trillion yen, even after excluding companies with capital of 100 million yen or less.
Takaichi holds socially conservative views. In December 2020, she stated that a government gender equality plan's provision to recognize separate surnames for spouses could "destroy the social structure based on family units." Takaichi also opposes revising the Imperial Household Law to allow female succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne. While she opposes same-sex marriage, she has also stated that "there should be no prejudice against sexual orientation or gender identity. I am in favor of promoting understanding itself." Takaichi supports punishing media outlets that criticize Japan's government and imprisoning those who damage the national flag. In 2014, she hosted office visits for far-right extremists, and a photograph surfaced of her endorsing a 1994 book titled "Hitler's Election Strategy" in a Tokyo magazine. Takaichi serves as vice chairperson of the parliamentary conference of the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership, an organization advocating for the restoration of Shinto religious rites and moral education.
In foreign policy, Takaichi, like other candidates in the 2025 LDP leadership election, supports revising Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to include mention of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. In 2021, she advocated for revising the constitution to reclassify the Self-Defense Forces as a "National Army" and increase defense spending to procure advanced equipment and fund research and development. She stated that in the event of war, "it is important to neutralize enemy bases first." She has been critical of China's economic practices, including intellectual property theft, and has voiced support for reducing economic dependence on China. Takaichi has argued for the deployment of US medium-range missiles to Japan and the removal of marine buoys placed by China in waters claimed by both countries in the Senkaku Islands dispute. In April 2025, she visited Taiwan and met with President Lai Ching-te, reiterating Shinzo Abe's statement that a "Taiwan emergency is a Japan emergency." During the 2021 LDP leadership election, her stance on China was the most hawkish among all candidates. In 2008, Takaichi published a statement on protests calling for revision of the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) following the arrest of a US marine in Okinawa on suspicion of child rape. Takaichi argued that the US was unlikely to approve a more favorable extradition agreement, as it would not accept the Japanese judicial system's barring of a defense attorney during interrogations and could weaken its military commitment to Japan. She also argued that changing the SOFA with the US could lead to a change in the SOFA between the United Nations and Iraq, exposing the Japanese Iraq Reconstruction and Support Group to Iraqi jurisdiction. Regarding nuclear weapons policy, she has stated, "It is contradictory to say that we will adhere to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles while gaining deterrence under the US nuclear umbrella." She has argued for considering the possibility of allowing US nuclear weapons onto Japanese territory, on land and sea, in an emergency. In March 2022, she remarked that "Ukraine is not a distant issue," pointing to Russian military bases in the Kuril Islands and China.
Takaichi has made multiple visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a site that has generated controversy due to its enshrinement of Japanese Class A, B, and C war criminals from before and during World War II. She visited in April and August 2024, signing as minister of state on both occasions. During the 2021 LDP leadership race, she stated she would continue to visit the shrine if elected Prime Minister, but in the 2025 race, she avoided commenting on the matter. In a 2022 lecture, Takaichi remarked on the controversy in China and South Korea over her Yasukuni Shrine visits: "because we ambiguously stopped halfway through paying respects at Yasukuni Shrine, the other side is tsukeagaru." "Tsukeagaru" translates literally to "climbing up" but is a derogatory term implying the opponent is low-ranking and has become overconfident. Takaichi has asserted that war crimes committed by Japan in World War II have been exaggerated. She holds a negative view of the Kono Statement and the Murayama Statement, which acknowledged Japanese war crimes, including the issue of comfort women. In a 2002 television appearance, when asked if Japan's war after the Manchurian Incident was a war of self-defense, she replied, "I think it was a war for security." In 2004, she wrote a column defending comments by Nariaki Nakayama, then Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, who stated that textbooks were "extremely self-deprecating" and should reduce the use of terms like "comfort women" and "forced labor." She argued that the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces' "overseas advances" were termed "invasion" in textbooks, while foreign offensives like the Soviet invasion of Manchuria were called "southward advance." She also claimed that textbooks exaggerated the Nanjing Massacre death toll beyond the city's population in December 1937. She recounted her complaint to MEXT against textbooks that criticized the government's Act on National Flag and Anthem and then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, stating it was "clear" that Japan "intended to wage a war of self-defense."
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reportedly nicknamed her "Taliban Takaichi," while another senior LDP legislator anonymously referred to the hard-right members of the party as a "cancer." In September 2025, she faced criticism for claiming that foreigners had kicked deer in Nara Park, based on social media videos.
Takaichi married Taku Yamamoto, a fellow member of the House of Representatives, in 2004. They have no children together, but Takaichi adopted Yamamoto's three children from a previous marriage. They divorced in July 2017, with Takaichi citing differing political views and aspirations as the reason. They remarried in December 2021. She has four grandchildren through her stepchildren. During her first marriage, she legally assumed her husband's family name but continued to use her maiden name publicly. Upon remarriage, Taku Yamamoto adopted the surname Takaichi, fulfilling the legal requirement for married couples to share a surname. Yamamoto suffered a cerebral infarction in 2025, resulting in paralysis on the right side of his body, and Takaichi serves as his caregiver. She is a fan of JRA horse racing, an avid listener of Japanese rock music, particularly artists like Demon Kakka, B'z, and X Japan, and supports sporting teams such as Gamba Osaka and Hanshin Tigers.
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Sanae Takaichi (born 7 March 1961) is a Japanese politician who has served as the president of the Liberal Democratic Party since 2025. A member of the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 and since 2005, she held several ministerial posts under prime ministers Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida. If elected prime minister by the National Diet, she would become Japan's first female Prime Minister, as well as the first from Nara Prefecture.
Born and raised in Nara, Takaichi graduated from Kobe University and worked as an author, legislative aide, and broadcaster before beginning her political career. Elected as an independent to the House of Representatives in 1993, she joined the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1996. A protégé of Abe, Takaichi held various positions during his premiership, most notably as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. She was a candidate in the 2021 LDP leadership election, but was eliminated before the runoff, placing third. From 2022 to 2024 during Fumio Kishida's premiership she served as Minister of State for Economic Security. Takaichi made her second run for the party leadership in 2024, where she came in first in the first round but narrowly lost in a runoff to Shigeru Ishiba. She ran again in 2025 and placed first in both rounds of voting, becoming party president and defeating Shinjirō Koizumi.
Her views have been variably described as conservative and ultraconservative. Her domestic policy includes support for the continuation of Abenomics, and opposition to same-sex marriage, the recognition of separate surnames for spouses and female succession to the Japanese throne. Her foreign policy includes support for revising Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, which renounces the use of military force, and strengthening the US–Japan Alliance. She is considered pro-Taiwan and a China hawk. A member of the Japanese ultranationalist organization Nippon Kaigi, she has argued that Japanese war crimes have been exaggerated; she regularly visits the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
== Early life ==
Born and raised in Nara Prefecture, her father worked for an automotive firm affiliated with Toyota. Her mother served in the Nara Prefectural Police. Takaichi graduated from Nara Prefectural Unebi High School. Despite qualifying to matriculate at Keio and Waseda universities in Tokyo, she did not attend as her parents refused to cover tuition fees if she left home or chose a private university because she was a woman. Instead, Takaichi commuted six hours to attend Kobe University. After graduation, she enrolled in the The Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. Takaichi played the drums and piano during her youth and enjoyed heavy metal music. She also had an interest in motorcycles, and owned a Kawasaki Z400.
With sponsorship from the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, she moved to the United States in 1987 to work for Democratic congresswoman Pat Schroeder as a congressional fellow. Upon return to Japan in 1989, she gained attention from the media as a legislative analyst with experience of American politics, and wrote books based on her experience. She went on to become a TV Asahi anchor in March 1989, co-hosting the station's "Kodawari TV Pre-Stage" programme with Renhō.
== Early political career (1993–2025) ==
Takaichi was first elected to the Japanese parliament's lower house, the House of Representatives, in the 1993 Japanese general election as an independent. The following year she joined the minor "Liberals" party led by Koji Kakizawa, which soon merged into the New Frontier Party.
In 1996, Takaichi ran as a sanctioned candidate from the New Frontier Party and was re-elected to the House of Representatives. However, the New Frontier Party lost nationally. On 5 November, she responded to recruitment from the Secretary-General of the LDP Koichi Kato and then joined the LDP. Her act of switching parties, two months after winning the election with anti-LDP votes, resulted in heavy criticism from New Frontier Party members.
In the LDP, Takaichi belonged to the Mori Faction (formally, the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai) and she served as a Parliamentary Vice Minister for the Ministry of International Trade and Industry under the Keizō Obuchi cabinet. She also served as chairman of the Education and Science Committee.
In the 2000 House of Representatives election she was placed in the first position on the LDP's proportional representation list and easily won her third term. In 2002 she was appointed as the Senior Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry under Junichiro Koizumi.
In the 2003 Japanese general election, she was defeated in the Nara 1st district by Democratic Party lawmaker Sumio Mabuchi. She moved to the nearby city of Ikoma and won a seat representing the Nara 2nd district in the 2005 Japanese general election. In 2004, while she was out of the Diet, she took an economics faculty position at Kinki University.
Takaichi headed an LDP in-party group that opposed legislation that would allow married couples to retain separate surnames after marriage (夫婦別姓), arguing that it would undermine Japan's traditional family system. Besides, as communications chief she "stirred controversy when she suggested TV broadcasters could have their license revoked if they air programs the government considers politically biased, a remark widely slammed as tantamount to the repression of free speech".
=== First Abe government ===
Takaichi served as Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy, Minister of State for Innovation, Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Gender Equality and Minister of State for Food Safety in the Japanese Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. In August 2007, she was the only Abe cabinet member to join former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in visiting Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of the end of World War II.
=== Second Abe government ===
After the LDP's victory in the 2012 Japanese general election, Takaichi was appointed to head the party's Policy Research Council (自由民主党政務調査会長). In January 2013, she recommended that Abe issue an "Abe Statement" to replace the Murayama Statement that apologized for the damages Imperial Japan brought its annexed nations through its colonial rule.
Takaichi was selected as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications to replace Yoshitaka Shindō on 3 September 2014. After she was named as a cabinet minister, a photograph was published of her together with Kazunari Yamada, the leader of the National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party – a small neo-Nazi party in Japan. She denied any link with Yamada and said she would not have accepted the picture had she known Yamada's background. She was also shown promoting a controversial book praising Adolf Hitler's electoral talents in 1994.
Takaichi was among the three members of the cabinet to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in 2014, became the first sitting cabinet member to attend the shrine's autumn festival in 2016, and was one of four cabinet ministers who visited Yasukuni on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in August 2020.
In the December 2014 general election, she won an overwhelming 96,000-vote majority in her district, defeating the runner-up by 58,000 votes.
In February 2016, Takaichi commented that the government could suspend the operations of broadcasters that aired politically biased content. The U.S. State Department later described this as "[giving] rise to concerns about increasing government pressure against critical and independent media."
An electoral redistricting in 2017, which Takaichi oversaw as internal affairs minister, eliminated one of Nara Prefecture's districts and resulted in Takaichi again potentially facing off with her former rival Mabuchi.
Takaichi was replaced by Seiko Noda on 3 August 2017, but returned to the Internal Affairs and Communications post on 11 September 2019, replacing Masatoshi Ishida. Among other initiatives, she put pressure on NHK to cut its viewing fees and reform its governance, and oversaw the distribution of cash handouts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
=== 2021 LDP leadership election ===
In August 2021, Takaichi expressed her willingness to challenge incumbent Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga for the presidency of the LDP in the scheduled election on 29 September. On 3 September, Suga announced that he would not seek re-election; news media outlets reported the next day that former Prime Minister Abe had shifted his support to Takaichi. Suga himself supported rival candidate Taro Kono. She has been described as "a favorite of conservatives with hawkish views on defense and diplomacy".
=== Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications document leak ===
Hiroyuki Konishi, a Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan-affiliated House of Councillors member, said on 2 March 2023 that he obtained a government document indicating that the former Abe government may have intended to interfere with the freedom of broadcasting by putting pressure on broadcasters that were critical of the LDP. Takaichi was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications|internal affairs minister at the time the document was said to have been created. When pressed during a committee session the following day, Takaichi said that the document was "fabricated" and vowed to resign from parliament if the document were proven genuine. Several days later, on 7 March 2023, the Internal Affairs ministry confirmed that the document was created by ministerial officials, and opposition Diet members called on Takaichi to resign. Following the announcement, Takaichi held to her position that the remarks attributed to her within the document were fabricated, adding that Konishi should bear the burden of proving the document's authenticity.
=== 2024 LDP leadership election ===
Takaichi was a contender in the election to succeed Kishida as LDP president in September 2024. Among the nine contenders, Takaichi emerged as a frontrunner alongside Shigeru Ishiba and Shinjiro Koizumi. Ultimately, she came first in the first round, but was defeated by Ishiba in the runoff.
Ishiba offered Takaichi the post of chairman of the LDP General Council; she declined the offer. In November, she became head of the LDP's newly organised research commission on public safety and measures against terrorism and cybercrime.
== LDP president (2025–present) ==
Following Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's resignation, Takaichi announced her candidacy for LDP president in the resulting leadership election on 18 September 2025. In early polling, Takaichi and agricultural minister Shinjirō Koizumi were identified as the frontrunners. As campaigning continued, both Takaichi and Koizumi were nearly tied in opinion polls. Takaichi softened her political message during the election campaign, declaring herself a "moderate conservative". She declined to comment on her previous stated intention to visit Yasukuni Shrine as prime minister.
The election was held on 4 October; Takaichi received 183 votes (31.07%) during the first round, the most of any candidate. Koizumi came in second with 164 votes (27.84%). As no candidate achieved a majority in the first round, a run-off election was held between Takaichi and Koizumi. Takaichi won the runoff by a 54.25% to 45.75% margin, becoming the first woman to hold the post of LDP president.
== Political positions ==
Takaichi is a hard-line conservative and nationalist. Takaichi is a member of the ultranationalist organisation, Nippon Kaigi. Taro Kono, another LDP minister and member of the House of Representatives, has said that Takaichi is on the far right of the political spectrum within the LDP. Takaichi has been described as far-right by Deutsche Welle and the South China Morning Post. In 2021, Time magazine described her as an ultraconservative.
She regularly visits the Yasukuni Shrine, which is viewed as controversial by China and South Korea.
Takaichi often cites Margaret Thatcher as a role model. Like Thatcher, she is called the "Iron Lady".
=== Immigration ===
Like Takaichi's fellow candidates in the 2025 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, she has been described as having "demonstrated a hard-line stance on immigration-related issues". The New York Times stated that during her leadership campaign "she seized on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment". Specifically she has been described as wanting "tighter restrictions on immigration" and as leaning on "anti-immigration rhetoric".
She supports adoption of a "Comprehensive Economic Security Act" that would establish laws and organizations to prevent foreign students and engineers who come to Japan from nations like China from taking Japanese technology back to their home countries for military purposes.
=== Economics ===
Takaichi is known for favouring proactive government spending. She supports heavy government investment in critical strategic sectors in what she refers to as "crisis management investment". These include: artificial intelligence, semiconductors, nuclear fusion, biotechnology, and defence. She supports maintaining Shinzo Abe's policy of Abenomics. During the 2025 LDP leadership election, she said she would consider paying for an economic stimulus plan by issuing bonds to service the national debt.
During her 2021 run for LDP leader, she put forward a three-pronged "Plan to Strengthen the Japanese Economy", also known as "New Abenomics" or "Sanaenomics". The first prong is expansionary monetary policy, the second prong is "flexible fiscal spending in response to crises," and the third prong is "bold investment in crisis management and growth". The plan places particular emphasis on "bold crisis management and growth investment", which will involve large-scale fiscal spending and the development of legal systems and new economic bonds.
She has advocated for tax increases on corporations. She has considered raising taxes on cash deposits rather than retained earnings, and in September 2021 she estimated that "a 1% tax on corporate cash deposits would increase tax revenue by 2 trillion yen. Even if companies with capital of 100 million yen or less are excluded, tax revenue would increase by 1 trillion yen."
=== Social issues ===
Takaichi has expressed socially conservative views. She said that a government gender equality plan's provision to recognize separate surnames for spouses in December 2020 could "destroy the social structure based on family units". Takaichi also opposes revising the Imperial Household Law to allow women to accede the Chrysanthemum Throne. She is opposed to same-sex marriage, but has also said that "there should be no prejudice against sexual orientation or gender identity. I am in favor of promoting understanding itself."
Takaichi supports punishing media outlets that criticise Japan's government and imprisoning those who damage Japan's national flag. In 2014 she hosted office visits for far-right extremists. Also in 2014, a photo surfaced of Takaichi pictured for an advertisement in a Tokyo magazine endorsing a 1994 book titled Hitler's Election Strategy.
Takaichi serves as the vice chairperson of the parliamentary conference of the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership (Shinto Seiji Renmei), which advocates for restoration of Shinto religious rites and moral education.
=== Foreign policy ===
Takaichi, like all other candidates in the 2025 LDP leadership election, supports revising article nine of the Japanese constitution to include mention of the Japan Self-Defence Forces. In 2021, she advocated revising the constitution to reposition the Self-Defense Forces as a "National Army", and increasing defense spending to promote the procurement of advanced equipment and research and development. She stated that in the event of war, "it is important to neutralize enemy bases first."
She has been critical of Chinese economic practices such as intellectual property theft, and has voiced support for reducing economic dependence on China. She has argued for deployment of US medium-range missiles to Japan, and the removal of marine buoys placed by China in waters both countries claim as part of the Senkaku Islands dispute. In April 2025, she visited Taiwan and met with President Lai Ching-te. She has repeated Shinzo Abe's statement that a "Taiwan emergency is a Japan emergency." During the 2021 Liberal Democratic Party leadership election, in which she placed third, her stance on China was the most hawkish of any candidate.
In 2008, Takaichi published an statement on protests calling for revision of the U.S.–Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), following an the arrest of a US marine in Okinawa on suspicion of child rape. Takaichi argued the US was unlikely to approve a more favorable extradition agreement, as the US would not accept the Japanese judicial system's barring of a defense attorney presence during interrogations, and could also weaken its military commitment to Japan. She also argued that changing the SOFA with the US could lead to a change in the SOFA between the United Nations and Iraq, exposing the Japanese Iraq Reconstruction and Support Group to Iraqi jurisdiction.
On nuclear weapons policy, she has said "It is contradictory to say that we will adhere to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles while gaining deterrence under the US nuclear umbrella." She has argued for the consideration of allowing US nuclear weapons into Japanese territory on land and sea in an emergency. In March 2022, she said that "Ukraine is not a distant issue", pointing to Russian military bases in the Kuril Islands, as well as China.
=== Historical revisionism ===
Takaichi has made multiple visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which has been the source of controversies, primarily surrounding its enshrinement of Japanese Class A, B, and C war criminals that worked before and during World War II. She made visits in April and August 2024, both times signing as minister of state. In the 2021 LDP leadership race, she said she would continue to visit the shrine if elected Prime Minister, but in the 2025 race avoided commenting on the question. In a 2022 lecture led by a right-wing group, Takaichi remarked about controversy in China and South Korea over her Yasukuni Shrine visits: "because we ambiguously stopped halfway through paying respects at Yasukuni Shrine, the other side is tsukeagaru (つけ上がる)." Tsukeagaru is "climbing up" in literal translation, but it is a derogatory expression that primarily considers the opponent low-ranking, which also translates to "get cocky".
Takaichi has said that war crimes committed by Japan in World War II have been exaggerated. She takes a negative view of the Kono Statement and the Murayama Statement, which acknowledged Japanese war crimes, including comfort women. In an appearance on a television program on 18 August 2002, Takaichi was asked, "Do you think Japan's war after the Manchurian Incident was a war of self-defence?" to which she replied, "I think it was a war for security."
In 2004, she wrote a column on her website regarding the Japanese history textbook controversies. She defended recent comments by Nariaki Nakayama, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) that textbooks were "extremely self-deprecating" and should continue decreasing usage of terms including "comfort women" and "forced labor". She wrote that the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces made "overseas advances (kaigai deno shingun)" that textbooks termed as "invasion (shinryaku)", while foreign offensives like the Soviet invasion of Manchuria were termed "southward advance (nanka)". She added that textbooks exaggerated the Nanjing Massacre's death toll beyond the population of Nanjing in December of 1937. She recounted her complaint to MEXT against textbooks that included criticism of the government's Act on National Flag and Anthem and of then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine. She said it was "clear" that Japan "intended to wage a war of self-defense".
== Criticism ==
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida allegedly nicknamed her "Taliban Takaichi", while another anonymous senior LDP legislator called the members of the hard right a “cancer" within the party.
In September 2025, she was criticized for claiming that foreigners had kicked deer in Nara Park; based off of videos circulated on social media.
== Personal life ==
Takaichi married a fellow member of the House of Representatives, Taku Yamamoto, in 2004. They have no children together, but Takaichi adopted Yamamoto's three children from a previous marriage. They divorced in July 2017, with Takaichi citing differing political views and aspirations as the reason. They remarried in December 2021. She has four grandchildren through her stepchildren. During her first marriage, she assumed her husband's family name legally, but continued to use her maiden name in public life. Upon remarriage, Taku Yamamoto took the name Takaichi instead, fulfilling the legal requirement that married couples have the same family name. Yamamoto suffered from a cerebral infarction in 2025, leaving the right side of his body paralysed. Takaichi serves as his carer.
She is a JRA horse racing fan, an avid Japanese rock listener, especially from artists Demon Kakka, B'z, and X Japan, and is a supporter of sporting teams such as Gamba Osaka and Hanshin Tigers.
== Electoral history ==
== See also ==
Tohokushinsha Film and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications scandal
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website (in Japanese)
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