How a pink-haired heavy metal rocker turned into Japan’s Iron Lady

Singapore: From a pink-haired, heavy metal rocker in her youth to one of Japan’s leading arch-conservative lawmakers, Sanae Takaichi found her political idol in Britain’s Margaret Thatcher.

Now she is poised to emulate Thatcher and shatter the ultimate glass ceiling by becoming her country’s first female prime minister, and shifting her party’s political agenda to the right.

“My goal is to become the ‘Iron Lady’,” Takaichi said recently as she made her third attempt to win the presidency of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Her critics in the party’s more moderate ranks allegedly have a different nickname for her – “Taliban Takaichi”, due to her hardline conservative views.

The former economics security minister was successful at a party leadership ballot on Saturday after two rounds of voting by lawmakers and rank-and-file members. She defeated the more centrist frontrunner, agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi who, at age 44, was vying to be Japan’s youngest leader in more than a century.

Takaichi will replace Shigeru Ishiba, Japan’s prime minister, who stepped down last month after less than a year in the job after the LDP suffered historic election defeats and lost its majority in both houses of parliament on his watch.

She is widely expected, although not guaranteed, to be confirmed as the next prime minister when the Diet, Japan’s national parliament, votes on the matter next week. Her bid could be thwarted by opposition parties, but they are seen as too fractured to unite behind a different candidate.

She will confront the immediate challenge of dealing with the unpredictable Trump administration and navigating a 15 per cent US tariff deal negotiated by her predecessor that requires Japan to invest $US550 billion ($833 billion) in the American economy.

But it is domestic obstacles that will be most testing. Takaichi takes the helm of a party in crisis amid a voter backlash over a stagnant economy, rising prices, and growing public anxiety over the numbers of foreign workers and inbound tourists.

Her election reflects the triumph of the conservative guard who believe the LDP needs to move to the right to win back public support after it lost the upper house election in July and the far-right Sanseito party gained ground.

But analysts say she has not laid out a clear vision for party reform, particularly when it comes to campaign finance and addressing the slush fund scandal that embroiled the LDP in 2023, which eroded public trust.

“For the public, it looks like business as usual and, for a lot of them, that’s no longer acceptable,” Jeff Kingston, a political scientist at Tokyo’s Temple University, said.

“A socio-economic malaise is gripping Japan and that has made a lot of voters sceptical of the ruling elite and not enthusiastic about the status quo.”

Nonetheless, her victory marks a significant milestone for the LDP and Japan’s political system in general, where women comprise about 15 per cent of the lower house.

She has vowed to promote more female cabinet ministers – there are currently just two in the 20-member cabinet – but she doesn’t have a track record of supporting women’s issues and there is plenty of scepticism that she represents a turning point for gender politics in Japan. She has opposed calls to legally allow married couples to have separate surnames as well as reforms to allow female succession in Japan’s imperial family, and is against same-sex marriage.

“Most dues-paying grassroots members of the LDP are men, and tend to be older men. She’s crafted her persona in a way that appeals to that audience very well,” said Kenneth McElwain, a politics professor at the University of Tokyo.

“I don’t know how much that will play with the general public, including with women voters.”

Once a drummer in a metal band and a motorcycle enthusiast in her student days, Takaichi was first elected to the Diet, Japan’s national parliament, in 1993 and rose through the ranks as an ally of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest serving prime minister who was assassinated in 2022.

She is a strong proponent of his “Abenomics” economic vision centred on government stimulus and low-interest rates, is known as a China hawk who supports revising Japan’s pacifist constitution, and has advocated for stricter immigration controls.

She has also made regular visits to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead, where 14 convicted war criminals are enshrined – a practice that is seen as antagonistic in China and South Korea.

In her victory speech, she put her colleagues on notice that there was a hard road ahead to resurrect the LDP, which has governed Japan for most of its post-war history.

“Everyone will be required to work – work like a horse. I will abandon the notion of work-life balance. Work, work, work, work, work,” she said.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.