Japan's former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida has won a race to become the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), putting him on course to become the country’s next prime minister.

Kishida defeated vaccines minister Taro Kono in a run-off on Wednesday to succeed Yoshihide Suga, who decided to step down after just one year in office.

Kishida received a total of 257 votes, from 249 parliament members and eight rank-and-file members

He is due to be elected as Japan’s new prime minister on Monday in parliament, where LPD and coalition partner control the house.

After working at now-defunct Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan and then as a secretary to a member of the House of Representatives, Kishida was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 general election, representing the Hiroshima 1st district.

Kishida served as Minister of Okinawa Affairs from 2007 to 2008, firstly in the Abe Cabinet and later in the Fukuda cabinet. He was appointed state minister in charge of consumer affairs and food safety in the cabinet of then prime minister Yasuo Fukuda in 2008. Kishida was also the state minister in charge of science and technology in the Fukuda cabinet.

He was close to Makoto Koga, leader of the Kōchikai faction, one of the oldest inside the LDP, and assumed control of it in October 2012 after Makoto Koga announced his retirement from politics.

Following the LDP's victory in the 2012 general election, Kishida was named foreign minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe on 26 December 2012. He became the longest-serving foreign minister in postwar history, unseating Abe's father Shintaro Abe. He helped to arrange U.S. President Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima in 2015, and gained attention in 2017 when he appeared alongside comedian Piko Taro to promote a UN program.

He was not in favor of the appointment of Toshihiro Nikai as LDP secretary-general by Abe in 2016 against the wishes of Kishida's own faction, which was seen as an attempt at blocking generational change inside the LDP.

In 2017, Kishida left the Cabinet to take over the chairmanship of the LDP Policy Research Council, a position traditionally seen as a stepping stone to the leadership of the party. He sought this position in order to improve his chances to succeed Abe, as the foreign minister post had relatively little influence within the party.[11]

Kishida considered running in the 2018 LDP presidential election, but he was persuaded by Abe not to run, with a suggestion that Abe would later support Kishida as his successor.

By mid-2020, several senior LDP lawmakers had shifted their support from Kishida to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso was quoted as saying "Kishida is for peacetime, not for troubled times." One factor in this shift was an unsuccessful proposal by Kishida to provide a 300,000 yen stimulus payment to households during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After Suga won the 2020 LDP presidential election and became Prime Minister, Kishida was not offered a position in the Suga cabinet, although his faction obtained two cabinet seats. (ILKHA)