Right-wing Sanae Takaichi set to be Japan's first female premier

The Star

Japan's ruling party has picked hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi as its head, putting the 64-year-old  on course to become the country's first female prime minister in a move set to jolt investors.   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00Japan's ruling party on Saturday picked hard-line conservative Senei Takaichi as its leader.

00:09And with that, Takaichi is on course to become the country's first female prime minister,

00:15in a move set to jolt investors.

00:18She's a former economic security and internal affairs minister with an expansionary fiscal agenda.

00:24And compared to her main competitor, she offered a starker vision for change.

00:30Rather than being happy, I feel like the tough work starts here.

00:34All of us together have a ton of work to do.

00:37We have a lot of policies to execute speedily.

00:40The Liberal Democratic Party elected Takaichi to regain trust from a public angered by rising prices

00:46and drawn to opposition groups promising stimulus and clampdowns on migrants.

00:53Here's Tina Barrett, professor of political science at Tokyo's Sofia University.

00:58So I think the election of Takaichi probably reflects a shift towards the right and more

01:04sort of nationalist type of politics in Japan, which has been going on really, I think, probably

01:09since the 1990s.

01:11So it's not a new trend.

01:12But in the past couple of years, the people who've been elected the leaders of the LDP

01:16generally come from the more liberal wing of the party.

01:21So I think this is significant within the party's politics to say that the right to recapture the

01:26leadership, which they haven't really held, I think, really since Prime Minister Abe.

01:30She wants to see more fiscal stimulus, more spending as a way of trying to kickstart the

01:36economy.

01:37Takaichi told a press conference on Saturday, quote,

01:39Right now, I believe Japan's economy is in a very fragile state.

01:44She also said she planned to honor an investment deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that lowered

01:49his punishing tariffs in return for Japanese taxpayer-backed investments, having previously

01:55suggested redoing it.

01:57Some of her supporters viewed her win on Saturday as a watershed in Japan's male-dominated politics.

02:04A vote in Parliament to choose a replacement for the outgoing Prime Minister is expected

02:10on October 15th.

02:12Takaichi is favored, as the ruling coalition has the largest number of seats.

02:17Takaichi is favored, as the Organization of Environment spite public business.

02:24Takaichi has favored, as the

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