Japan could soon have its first female prime minister.

The country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will later this month choose a new leader who will be virtually guaranteed the top job.

In the running are two formidable women: Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Economics Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Having either become prime minister would seem to be a dramatic leap forward for a country which lags behind most of the world in measures of political gender equality.

However, observers say having Ms Takaichi smash the political glass ceiling would not necessarily be good for progressive issues in Japan more generally.

Who are the women running for the leadership?

Ms Takaichi has been a member of Japan’s diet, or parliament, since 1993 and ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the LDP in 2021.

A protege of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, she has labeled her big spending economic stimulus policies “Sanaenomics” following his famous “Abenomics”.

She’s also known as a hardline conservative on social issues and often cites Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s conservative “Iron Lady” prime minister from the 1980s, as an inspiration.

She opposes same-sex marriage, advocates for Japan to revise its pacifist constitution, and regularly visits the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese soldiers, including those convicted of war crimes in World War II.

While she supports childcare subsidies for working women, she has otherwise remained largely silent on Japan’s gender gap and is against allowing married women to have separate surnames.

Ms Kamikawa, a former think-tank researcher who has a masters degree in public policy from Harvard in the US, has been a member of parliament since 2000.

More progressive on social issues than Ms Takaichi, she has said diversity is important and that women’s perspectives are needed to make society better.

However, she’s far from a bleeding heart liberal.

As minister for justice, she authorized the executions of 16 people, including 13 members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, who were responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.

Leadership ballot ‘difficult to predict’

The campaign to become LDP president officially kicked off on Thursday, with a record nine candidates.

Increased attention has been focused on the ballot to be held on September 27 since outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last month announced he would step downguaranteeing that a new leader would be chosen.

Mr Kishida’s public approval suffered amid revelations of the party’s ties to the controversial Unification Church, a party donation slush fund scandal and cost-of-living pressures.

Under LDP rules, all of the party’s MPs and rank-and-file members get to vote for the new leader with each cohort given equal weight.

If no single candidate manages to get 50 per cent, then a runoff is held between the first and second place getters.

Once the new party president is chosen, parliament votes for a new prime minister.

That will almost certainly be the new leader of the LDP, which has only been out of office twice since it was founded in 1955, because of its parliamentary majority.

Ming Hui Tan, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said historic factional politics had shaped leadership races.

While the major factions had been dissolved, she said powerful former faction members still had a lot of influence.

“Given these complications, as well as a record number of candidates, it is difficult to predict the upcoming race,” she said.

Jeffrey Hall, a Japanese politics expert at Kanda University of International Studies, said the favorite was Shinjiro Koizumi, a former environment minister and son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

The 43-year-old would be Japan’s youngest-ever prime minister if elected.

Dr Hall said Ms Takaichi was not far behind along with former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba, followed by former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi.

“It will probably end in a second round run-off between Koizumi and another candidate,” Dr Hall said.

“In the second round, it is diet members who get the strongest votes, not the rank and file members of the party.

“Personal rivalries between old faction bosses or a desire to unite against a socially progressive Koizumi might matter far more than Koizumi’s popularity with the general public.”

Dr Hall said Ms Kamikawa had an “impressive CV” but was considered a long-shot candidate.

“She had considerable difficulty gaining the required 20 endorsements and will face a tough time because she’s less famous than other candidates,” he said.

“Takaichi is a strong contender to come in second or third in the first round of voting.

“If no candidate has a majority and the race advances to a second round, she has a decent chance of winning.

“She’s backed by the conservative right of the party, who see most other candidates as too progressive on social issues.”

Japan’s yawning gender gap

Despite incremental changes, men still dominate the ranks of leadership roles in Japan.

The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Gender Gap report — which measures economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment — ranked Japan 118th out of 146 countries included (Australia ranked 24th).

The report said the share of women in legislative, senior official, and managerial roles in 2024 had increased by 4.6 percentage points since 2006.

“Nonetheless, Japan’s gender disparity in senior roles remains significant, with a gender parity score of 17.1 per cent,” it said.

According to the global Inter-Parliamentary Union, Japan ranks 162nd in the world for women in parliaments with only 10.8 per cent of members in the House of the Representatives being women, while the House of Councillors is not much better at 26.6 per cent.

Dr Hall said this was largely the fault of the political parties.

“The LDP has repeatedly failed to keep its own pledges to nominate more female candidates,” he said.

“If it did, there would likely be more female legislators.

“Japan’s political leaders have shown only superficial commitment to seriously increasing female representation in government.”

Ms Tan said barriers to entry and a tough working environment for women in politics also played a part.

“It is challenging for women to navigate the male-dominated political system, and they face sexism and persisting gender stereotypes,” she said.

What a female PM would mean for Japan

Ms Tan said having either Ms Kamikawa or Ms Takaichi become prime minister would be a “significant step forward” and show that Japanese society was “becoming more open for women to play bigger roles in politics”.

“It is very important to have female political leaders visible in everyday life, and to have a role model showing that women can also aim for the top job,” she said.

“Nevertheless, even with a female prime minister, Japanese politics still remains male-dominated, and more needs to be done for equal representation.”

Dr Hall pointed out that while a Ms Takaichi victory would give Japan its first female prime minister, she would be one of the country’s most conservative leaders in decades.

“It would be a major setback for people who hold socially progressive views on gender and sexuality,” he said.

“The LDP is a conservative party and even if a woman wins, her policy views will probably be significantly to the right of most Japanese voters.”