Japanese Minister Announces Candidacy for Party Leadership Race and Next Prime Minister

Japan’s Minister of Digital Transformation and former Defense Minister Taro Kono announced on Monday his candidacy for the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race in September.

Kono said during a news conference held in that he would like to follow in his footsteps.

The party election is scheduled for September 27 after Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced earlier this month that he will be stepping down.

The internal election must be held by the end of September, which marks the end of Kishida’s three-year term and will only include the party’s parliamentarians and its 1.1 million dues-paying members.

The winner will be the head of the Liberal Democratic Party and the country’s prime minister as the party and its smaller coalition partner control Japan’s two-chamber parliament.

Kono is the third member to declare candidacy in the leadership race so far, after former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba and former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi announced their candidacies earlier in the month.