LDP Lawmakers Seeking Leadership Race Will Need to Write in, Says Party Committee

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:28 JST, August 20, 2025

The Liberal Democratic Party plans to ask its lawmakers who want to hold the party’s next presidential race early to express their support in writing.

The LDP presidential election committee, chaired by Ichiro Aisawa, held its first meeting on the issue at party headquarters on Tuesday. Its members agreed on having LDP lawmakers who support an early leadership race express so in writing. The committee also intends to ask each of the party’s prefectural chapters for their stance on the matter, but it will determine how to confirm their views later.

Article 6, Section 4 of the LDP Constitution stipulates that even if the president’s term has not expired, an election shall be held if requested by a majority of a group comprising the party’s Diet members and one representative from each prefectural chapter. Currently, that group is made up of 342 individuals, so a majority would mean 172 people in favor.

At the committee meeting on Tuesday, some called for sounding support for a presidential election immediately after the party reviews last month’s House of Councillors election, which it is slated to do in late August. The election committee plans to hold another meeting as early as next week.

After the meeting on Tuesday, Aisawa told reporters, “Speed is important, but at the same time, we must be rigorous and careful in designing the system to ensure that we confirm people’s perspectives without error.”

On the day, the committee, which is supposed to have 11 members, appointed eight new members to fill vacancies created by former members losing in the upper house election, among other factors.