A New Prime Minister, an Old Country: Tokyo Wakes to Japan’s First Female Leader
When the speaker’s gavels fell and the parliamentary lights dimmed, Tokyo’s morning felt both new and strangely familiar. A first in Japan’s modern political history had arrived — a woman at the country’s helm — and yet the problems on her desk were as weathered as the cedar beams at a Shinto shrine. Sanae Takaichi now stands where a handful of men have stood for decades, inheriting a fragile coalition, a stalled economy and a population that is both greying and shrinking.
“This is a moment for the country, but it’s not a moment of certainty,” said a pensioner named Koji, who had watched the late-night vote on a crackling shop radio in his neighbourhood near Ueno. “We need someone who’ll say ‘no’ when it’s right, not just someone who can make a show.” His voice carried the weary optimism of many older voters who have seen governments come and go but whose pensions remain a daily preoccupation.
How she got here
The path to the premiership was less cathedral than scramble: an 11th-hour coalition, a slim parliamentary majority in the lower house, and an uneasy deal with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) after the Komeito — long the LDP’s junior partner — walked away. In the lower house vote, she secured 237 of 465 seats cast, and the upper chamber confirmed her in a runoff. Formalities remain — including a traditional audience with the emperor — but the political reality is in place: Japan has its first female prime minister.
That she rose after a recent leadership contest, and only days after becoming head of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), underscores the political turbulence beneath the surface. The LDP has dominated Japanese politics for nearly seven decades, governing almost continuously since 1955, yet public support has frayed. Polls this year showed rising disenchantment with stagnant wages, an overwhelmed social safety net and repeated leadership turnover; the country has already seen at least five prime ministers in as many years.
A coalition stitched together at the last minute
The Komeito split, citing discomfort with Takaichi’s conservative views and a corruption scandal, left the LDP scrambling. The bridge to survival was the JIP — a right-leaning, reformist party whose platform reads like a populist wish list: zero-rated consumption tax on food, a crackdown on corporate donations, and a cut in the number of lawmakers.
“We are trying to balance stability with reform,” an LDP aide told me, asking not to be named. “It’s clumsy. But politics is often messy glue.” The coalition is nonetheless a minority in both houses, which means the new cabinet will have to negotiate, bargain and sometimes surrender to pass anything of consequence.
The policy puzzle: economy, defence, and social choices
On the economic front, challenges are glaring. Japan is the world’s third-largest economy by nominal GDP — about $5 trillion — but it carries the heaviest sovereign debt burden among advanced economies, with public debt exceeding 250% of GDP in recent estimates. Inflation, wage stagnation and anemic productivity growth have left many citizens feeling that “Abenomics”, the stimulus strategy associated with Takaichi’s mentor Shinzo Abe, has run its course.
Takaichi has publicly pledged to “make Japan’s economy stronger and reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations.” In practice that may mean an aggressive combination of monetary easing and fiscal stimulus — the same levers that have been pulled for years with mixed results. The JIP’s promise to exempt food from the 10% consumption tax would be politically popular but would also leave a large hole in revenues; consumption tax has been a critical source of income for an ageing welfare state.
Meanwhile, foreign policy deadlines loom. Washington reportedly seeks clearer commitments on defence spending and energy diversification, and a proposed trade-related investment package — reported in some quarters to be as big as $500 billion — remains vague. A high-stakes state visit from US President Donald Trump is scheduled next week, according to parliamentary calendars; how Tokyo navigates pressure over Russian energy imports and American expectations will test the prime minister’s diplomatic instincts.
Security and neighbours
Takaichi, once a vocal critic of Beijing, has in the past said “Japan is completely looked down on by China” and advocated for greater defence cooperation with Taiwan. Since her rise she’s largely softened her tone, stepping back this month from the contentious symbolism of Yasukuni Shrine visits. But analysts warn that rhetoric can be restrained and policies still hawkish.
“She has signalled continuity in security policy but we should watch the details,” said a political analyst at a Tokyo university. “Japan is navigating a narrow strait between economic interdependence with China and a stronger security alignment with the US.” The choices she makes will ripple across East Asia and into global supply chains.
Gender, image and the paradox of symbolism
The story of a female prime minister should be a simple act of progress. But Takaichi’s platform complicates the narrative. She has spoken candidly about women’s health and her own experience with menopause — a rare and humanising note in political discourse — yet she opposes changing the 19th-century law that requires married couples to share a surname and supports keeping the imperial succession male-only.
“It’s possible to be a trailblazer without being a liberal on all fronts,” said Emi Tanaka, who runs a co-working space in Shibuya. “But for young women, it’s confusing. Do we cheer the first glass ceiling broken only to find the woman at the top upholding other ceilings?” The question hangs in cafés, in corporate elevator rides and on social feeds across Japan.
Local color and the mood on the streets
Walk Tokyo’s neighborhoods and you can see the contrasts. In Ginza, boutique owners politely applaud continuity. Near a pachinko parlor in Ikebukuro, older men shrug; they want steady pensions. Outside a ramen shop in Asakusa, a backpacker from Seoul remarked, “It’s historic, but nothing will change overnight.” Across the country in regional towns, faces tell a different story: empty playgrounds, shuttered shops and school bells that ring for ever smaller classes.
Japan’s population has fallen from a postwar peak — recent figures put it around 125 million — and nearly 30% of people are over 65. Those numbers are not abstract; they are the slow erosion of communities and a looming strain on healthcare, pensions and labour.
What comes next?
Takaichi inherits not only power but paradox. She is both symbol and status quo. She is the first woman to sit in a role long monopolised by men, yet she champions some of the oldest social scripts. Her minority coalition will force compromise. Her economic prescriptions will test Japan’s tolerance for more debt and bolder restructuring. Her foreign policy choices will be watched from Washington to Beijing and Taipei.
Will she be remembered as a watershed moment in representation, or as a footnote in the country’s long political shuffle? That question invites you to consider what real progress looks like. Is it simply a new face in an old chair, or the remaking of institutions to reflect a changing society?
For now, Japan waits. In the coming days, that waiting will be punctuated by meetings with foreign leaders, debates in two parliamentary chambers, and the quiet calculus of voters scanning supermarket receipts and pension statements. The ceremony with the emperor will offer a moment of tradition; the tougher tests are the quiet decisions she must make on hospitals, classrooms and diplomatic cables. Those choices will reveal whether this milestone translates into meaningful change.
So what do you think — does the arrival of Japan’s first female prime minister signal a new chapter, or a carefully staged page-turning? The answer may depend on whether the policies that follow match the symbolism that preceded them.
