They say about Sanae Takaichi who used to carry four pairs of drumsticks because he often broke them with his brio hitting the plates in his university band, who at the age of 64 still listens to Iron Maiden and relieving your stress with electric battery at home. He also toured the country with his large displacement motorcyclepractice the dive and it will be the first woman to occupy the top of Japanese power. Her biographical lines draw a revolutionary in the sclerotized national politics, but Takaichi is the most conservative of the conservative party that has held power almost without pause since the postwar period. Without risk of falling into originality, admire Margaret Thatcher and intends to become the Japanese Iron Lady.
Takaichi, inaugurated this Tuesday by the Lower House, is the political daughter of Shinzo Abethe assassinated prime minister and still an ideological reference of the Liberal Democratic Party. In these uncertain times, with their formation punished by financial scandals and the extreme right, the conservatives have chosen the known winning recipe. Takaichi has no shortage of nationalism nor the militarismunderstands the admirable pacifist Constitution as a corset to national greatness, promotes patriotic education in school and shares with Abe the relativism about Japanese imperialism and its barbarities of the last century on the continent.
Takaichi does not belong to any of the traditional dynasties of Japanese politics. She was born in Naga Prefecture, the daughter of a car company employee and a police officer. Was television presenter before joining the team of a US congresswoman in the 1980s to understand where the hostility towards Japan came from. It was then at its peak trade warso poorly resolved by Japan that it still suffers from its economic decline, with perceptions similar to those suffered by the Chinese today. Takaichi realized with horror that few people differentiated USA to the Japanese from the rest of the Asians. “If Japan cannot defend itself, it will always be at the mercy of superficial American public opinion,” he concluded.
Promotion in the party
Already in his country he tried to enter Parliament as an independent and failed. He tried again under the umbrella of the LPD and since then he has won 9 out of 10 times. He rose through the ranks of his party, headed its Political Research Council and has held ministerial portfolios such as economic security, internal affairs and communications. He lost the 2021 primaries against Fumio Kishida and those of 2024 against Shigeru Ishiba before defeating Shinjiro Koizumi, the reformist option within the narrow margins of the PLD, in last month’s elections.
Does not wait for feminism great contributions of Takaichi in one of the most unequal countries of the world. Their gender, for political purposes, is irrelevant. She is no less conservative on this matter than the four male colleagues whom she defeated in the last primaries. In the name of tradition has opposed married women keeping their maiden namenot even with the shortage of male candidates has he supported the reform of the Salic law in the Imperial house and is against gay marriages.
Takaichi intends to stop the flight of votes to the new formations of extreme right as Sanseito that now disfigures the LPD with an alleged lukewarmness. The prime minister took up the problem in her campaign. “We have received particularly harsh criticism from our staunchest supporters, conservatives and party members.”
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