One glass ceiling at a time: Sanae Takaichi becomes president of Japan’s LDP

On October 4, Sanae Takaichi was elected the 29^th president of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, making history as the first woman elected to the role. It was a significant moment for a political party well-known for its conservative stance on gender equality and women’s roles. It also was a remarkable moment for Japan, a country with a poor record of gender equality and extremely low levels of female political representation.

Japan has long ranked towards the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index. The index measures the gap between men and women in four domains: political representation, economic empowerment, educational attainment, and health and survival. It is the first two domains—and especially political representation—that has led Japan to rank 118^th (out of 148) in 2024 and 2025.

Not only has Takaichi broken the glass ceiling for women, unusually, she comes from an ordinary, non-political, non-monied background. This distinguishes her from most of her LDP predecessors, and from most female political leaders in Asia.

Takaichi comes from a middle-class family with no political connections. Her father was a company employee, and her mother was a police officer. It was typical of parents of that generation, including Takaichi’s parents, to send their sons to universities and their daughters to two-year colleges. Takaichi’s parents encouraged her to go to a two-year college and told her that if she wanted to attend university, she would have to fund herself. She was accepted into Waseda University, but then realised she couldn’t afford it and chose Kobe University instead. She worked several part-time jobs to support herself and pay her tuition. This was highly unusual and demonstrates remarkable drive and ambition.     

Takaichi’s main opponent in the LDP leadership election was Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former Prime Minister, Jun’ichiro Koizumi. It was a close competition, but Takaichi is no overnight sensation. After graduating from Kobe University with a degree in management, she trained at the Matsushita Political and Economic Research Institute. In 1987, she spent a year as a Congressional Fellow in the US, under the tutelage of Democrat Congresswoman, Patricia Schroeder. First elected to the Japanese Diet in 1993 as an independent, she joined the LDP in 1996, and gradually built a reputation as a hard-working, trustworthy, policy expert. In 2012, she was the first woman to become the LDP Policy Research Council Chair. Then, in 2014, she became the first woman to be Minister of Internal Affairs and Communication and held that post for longer than anyone else. She held several other ministerial positions, including Minister for Economic Security, before running for LDP president for the first time in 2021, when she came third, not making it to the run-off. She tried again in 2024 and was runner-up to Shigeru Ishiba. She has had ambitions to become prime minister from the age of 24.

Today she is on the cusp of fulfilling that goal, her candidacy marked by several positives and negatives. On the one hand, aligning herself with influential former Prime Minister, the late Abe Shinzo was strategically smart because it helped her climb the LDP ladder. On the other hand, her historical revisionist views and desire to amend the Constitution to strengthen the country’s military capabilities place in doubt her capacity to cooperate with the more dove-like members of her own party, to say nothing of gaining support from important smaller political parties like the Komeito or the opposition parties.

If Takaichi does become prime minister, Japan will be in the extraordinary situation of having two of the country’s most politically powerful positions filled by women. Yuriko Koike, who is nine years older than Takaichi, is in her third term as Tokyo’s governor. The two women share some similar histories: both were news readers (Koike’s news broadcaster career was longer than Takaichi’s) and both are politically conservative. It is difficult to overstate, in the context of Japan’s deeply gender-unequal society, the monumental success of these two women to have reached the pinnacle of public power.

When they began their careers in the 1970s and 1980s, women were legally discriminated against in the workforce and channelled into non-career menial jobs. In an era when women on television were mostly cast for decorative purposes, Takaichi and Koike provided political insights and opinions on news programs. They carved out their careers in male-dominated fields before workplace sexual harassment was a concept let alone legislated against. It was a time before the idea of ‘work-life balance’ existed, and in an era when women quit work upon marriage. Certain feminist arguments about whether or not they are good leaders for women notwithstanding, it is important to acknowledge that political success for women of this era involved huge personal sacrifice and overcoming hurdles that were higher than those for most men.  

While Takaichi has smashed the LDP glass ceiling, the next ceiling—the prime ministership—might not break yet. On 10 October, just days after Takaichi became President of the LDP, the party’s junior coalition partner, the Komeito, withdrew from their 26-year-long arrangement because of the LDP’s failure to adequately address slush fund scandals that have plagued the party for the last several years. Takaichi now finds herself and her party in a precarious position.

To become Prime Minister, she needs a majority of votes from Diet members in elections held by both houses. If the Lower and Upper houses disagree, the result from the Lower House prevails. As a result of losing the last three elections, the LDP does not have a majority in either house. With the Komeito no longer offering support in the form of votes, Takaichi must negotiate quickly and effectively to persuade political parties that are quite ideologically different than the LDP to put those differences aside in the name of stable governance. Whether Takaichi has the negotiation skills, and the ability to compromise enough to satisfy other party leaders is her first challenge – one that so far, if her negotiations with Komeito leader, Tetsuo Saito, are any indication—she seems to be failing. Her image of trustworthiness and diligence has earned her favour with the Japanese public, but this might not translate into the support she needs through votes from her Diet member colleagues.

Emma Dalton is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University. She is the author of multiple books and articles about women’s involvement in politics in Japan. She has taught Japanese language and Japanese studies at universities in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Image: “Bilateral Meeting Japan (gc67_9413)” by IAEA Imagebank, CC BY 2.0