Campaigning In Ldp Leadership Race To Begin
Official campaigning is to kick off in the race to choose the successor to outgoing Prime Minister Abe Shinzo as head of Japan's main governing Liberal Democratic Party.
Three lawmakers plan to file their candidacies on Tuesday. They are Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide; LDP policy chief and former foreign minister Kishida Fumio; and former LDP secretary-general Ishiba Shigeru.
In the afternoon, the three candidates will deliver speeches and hold a joint news conference.
Among key issues in the race are whether and how to continue with the polices of the Abe administration, measures against the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, and regional revitalization.
In a bid to prevent the spread of the coronavirus campaign events like debate sessions will be live-streamed, with limits on crowd sizes at venues. Usually candidates travel across the country to give speeches, but that won't happen this time.
Voting takes place at a general meeting of LDP lawmakers in both houses of the Diet on Monday of next week.
The candidates will vie for a majority of 535 votes, with 394 LDP lawmakers having one vote each and each of the local chapters representing the country's 47 prefectures having three votes.
Many of the 47 chapters say they'll hold a preliminary poll of rank-and-file party members to determine how to cast their allocated ballots.
