(Sept 29): Fumio Kishida secured Japan’s premiership by showing his strength among ruling party insiders. Kishida, 64, is set to become Japan’s prime minister after defeating a more popular reformer, Taro Kono, in an election Wednesday to lead the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party. While Kishida can all-but guarantee that the LDP will install him as premier at a special session Monday, keeping the job will require convincing a skeptical public he deserves it in a general election within weeks. “He’s managed to become a bit more appealing in the course of the leadership campaign, but it will remain an issue in the run-up to the general election. Kishida’s victory caps an unpredictable LDP election, in which two of the four candidates were female.

Source: The Edge Markets September 29, 2021 11:26 UTC