Koizumi Overtakes Ishiba In LDP Leadership Poll-Nikkei

The latest Nikkei opinion poll for the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidency shows former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi overtaking former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba. The poll, carried out 21-22 Aug, shows Koizumi with 23% support with Ishiba behind at 18% while Minister of Economic Security Sanae Takaichi sits in third place at 11%.

• The previous Nikkei/TV Tokyo poll at the same point in July (before PM Fumio Kishida announced he would not seek re-election as LDP president) had Ishiba at 24% and Koizumi second with 15%.
• Nikkei: "When the survey was narrowed down to LDP supporters, Koizumi came in first with 32%, followed by Takaichi (15%) and Ishiba (14%)."
• 'Observing Japan' writer Tobias Harris posts on X: "In a large field, winning 32% of the 367 LDP supporters' votes will go a long way to moving on to a runoff. Perhaps the question now is whether Koizumi's presence in the race deters some others from entering."
• The election, the most open in many years, takes place on 27 September. In the election, half of the total votes go to LDP members of the Diet, while the other half are distributed proportionally to fee-paying party members.
• If no candidate wins over 50% of the vote, an immediate run-off takes place between the top two candidates. The LDP diet members get half the votes in this contest, with the 47 chapters of the LDP in each prefecture each getting a vote determined by their area's backing of candidates in the first round.