2009 Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) presidential election

A presidential election was held in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan on 28 September 2009 after the incumbent party leader and outgoing Prime Minister of Japan Tarō Asō announced that he would resign after losing badly in the general election held on 30 August 2009.^[1] Asō announced on 8 September he would resign on 16 September 2009,^[2] which he did as planned.^[3]

2009 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election

← 2008 28 September 2009 2012 →

Candidate Sadakazu Tanigaki Tarō Kōno Yasutoshi Nishimura LDP MPs 120 35 43 Party members 180 109 11 Total 300 144 54

President before election Tarō Asō Elected President Sadakazu Tanigaki

Candidates

In order to run in the election, a candidate must have the support of at least twenty LDP MPs. Since there are 387 LDP Diet members and 141 prefectural LDP representatives (three for each of the 47 prefectural chapters), there is a total of 528 votes.

Former finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki announced on 13 September 2009 he would stand in the election. Tanigaki had also been a candidate in the 2006 leadership election, where he came in third place behind Shinzō Abe and Tarō Asō. Yasutoshi Nishimura and Tarō Kōno (son of former LDP leader Yōhei Kōno) are the other two announced candidates.^[4]

Farm minister Shigeru Ishiba was also considered a possible candidate, but he did not stand.^[5]

Declared

Candidate(s)		Date of birth	Current position	Party faction	Electoral district
Sadakazu Tanigaki		(1945-03-07)7 March 1945 (age 64)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 1983) Other offices Chairperson of the National Public Safety Commission (2002–2003) Minister of Finance (2003–2006) Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2008)	Kōchikai (Koga)	Kyoto 5th
Taro Kono		(1963-01-10)10 January 1963 (age 46)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 1996) Previous offices held Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications (2002) State Minister of Justice (2005–2006)	Ikōkai (Asō)	Kanagawa 15th
bSize = 120 Yasutoshi Nishimura		(1962-10-15)15 October 1962 (age 46)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 2003) Previous offices held Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs (2008–2009)	Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai (Machimura)	Hyōgo 9th

Recommenders

List of recommenders

Candidates	Yasutoshi Nishimura	Taro Kono	Sadakazu Tanigaki
Leader of recommenders	Katsunobu Kato	Masahiko Shibayama	Takashi Tanihata
Person in charge	Ryota Takeda	Masaaki Taira	Ryotaro Tanose
Recommenders	Ichirō Kamoshita	Jiro Aichi	Masatoshi Ishida
	Tarō Kimura	Shinji Inoue	Nobuteru Ishihara
	Shigeo Kitamura	Hideaki Ōmura	Masahiro Imamura
	Ryū Shionoya	Katsuyuki Kawai	Takeshi Iwaya
	Sanae Takaichi	Yoriko Kawaguchi	Yasuhiro Ozato
	Hiroshi Hase	Shinobu Kandori	Yuriko Koike
	Kunio Hatoyama	Akio Koizumi	Genichiro Sata
	Motohisa Furukawa	Ken Saitō	Tsuyoshi Takagi
	Keiji Furuya	Isshu Sugawara	Wataru Takeshita
	Norio Mitsuya	Hiroshige Sekō	Koichi Tani
	Yūji Yamamoto	Kazunori Tanaka	Takeshi Tokuda
	Kaoru Yosano	Kotaro Tamura	Seiichiro Murakami
	Seiichi Eto	Ichiro Tsukada	Hiroshi Moriyama
	Yōsuke Isozaki	Keiko Nagaoka	Shinya Izumi
	Shinsuke Suematsu	Katsuei Hirasawa	Issei Kitagawa
	Kyoko Nakayama	Kazuya Maruyama	Masahisa Sato
	Toshiharu Furukawa	Ichita Yamamoto	Satoshi Ninoyu
	Eriko Yamatani	Hiroyuki Yoshiie	Masako Mori

Campaign

A public debate was held on 19 September 2009.^[6] Tanigaki was elected with 300 of 498 ballots.^[7]

Results

Candidates	Diet members	Party members	Total
Sadakazu Tanigaki	120	180	300
Taro Kono	35	109	144
Yasutoshi Nishimura	43	11	54
Grand Total	198	300	498

• 1 invalid vote