2012 Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) presidential election

A presidential election was held on 26 September 2012 to elect the next president of the Liberal Democratic Party for a new 3-year term.

2012 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election

← 2009 26 September 2012 2015 →

Candidate Shinzo Abe Shigeru Ishiba Nobuteru Ishihara Leader's seat Yamaguchi 4th Tottori 1st Tokyo 8th First round 141 (28.37%) 199 (40.04%) 96 (19.32%) Runoff vote 108 (54.82%) 89 (45.18%) Eliminated

First round results Second round results

President before election Sadakazu Tanigaki Elected President Shinzo Abe

Background

The leadership election was held on September 26, 2012, when Sadakazu Tanigaki's term of office expired.Three years after last general election, support for the ruling Democratic Party had been weak, and this election had attracted a lot of attention as it was expected to change power in the upcoming general election.

Candidates

At first, it seemed to be a battle centered on the incumbent Tanigaki who showed strong desire for re-election, but as mentioned earlier, it became a presidential election to elect a leading candidate for "next prime minister," so many lawmakers showed their willingness. It was described as a different aspect from the previous factional elections, and "the decline in the power of factions was highlighted".^[1][2]

Declared

Candidate(s)		Date of birth	Current position	Party faction	Electoral district
Shinzo Abe		(1954-09-21)21 September 1954 (age 58)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 1993) Previous offices held Prime Minister (2006–2007) President of the Liberal Democratic Party (2006–2007) Chief Cabinet Secretary (2005–2006)	Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai (Machimura)	Yamaguchi 4th
Shigeru Ishiba		(1957-02-04)4 February 1957 (age 55)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 1986) Previous offices held Minister of Defense (2007–2008) Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (2008–2009) Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council (2009–2011)	None	Tottori 1st
Nobuteru Ishihara		(1957-04-17)17 April 1957 (age 55)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 1990) Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party (since 2010) Previous offices held Minister for Regulatory Reform (2001–2003) Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2003–2004)	Kinmirai Seiji Kenkyūkai (Yamasaki)	Tokyo 8th
Nobutaka Machimura		(1944-10-17)17 October 1944 (age 67)	Member of the House of Representatives (since 1983) Previous offices held Minister for Foreign Affairs (2004–2005, 2007) Chief Cabinet Secretary (2007–2008)	Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai (Machimura)	Hokkaido 5th
Yoshimasa Hayashi		(1961-01-19)19 January 1961 (age 51)	Member of the House of Councillors (since 1995) Previous offices held Minister of Defense (2008) Minister State for Economic and Fiscal Policy (2009)	Kōchikai (Koga)	Yamaguchi at-large

Withdrawn

Candidate(s)		Date of birth	Current positions	Party faction	Electoral District
Sadakazu Tanigaki		(1945-03-07)7 March 1945 (age 67)	President of the Liberal Democratic Party (since 2009) 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

Recommenders

List of recommenders

Candidates	Shinzo Abe	Shigeru Ishiba	Nobutaka Machimura	Nobuteru Ishihara	Yoshimasa Hayashi
Leader of recommenders	Hakubun Shimomura	Ichirō Kamoshita	Seiko Hashimoto	Ryotaro Tanose	Koichi Kishi
Person in charge	Akira Amari	Hiroshi Kajiyama	Hiroyuki Hosoda	Toshimitsu Motegi	Yoichi Miyazawa
Recommenders	Kenya Akiba	Masatoshi Ishida	Taro Kimura	Shinji Inoue	Yasushi Kaneko
	Tomomi Inada	Masazumi Gotoda	Shigeo Kitamura	Itsunori Onodera	Seigo Kitamura
	Masahiro Imamura	Ken Saitō	Ryū Shionoya	Yūko Obuchi	Takuya Hirai
	Taku Eto	Norihisa Tamura	Tsuyoshi Takagi	Kazuyoshi Kaneko	Teru Fukui
	Katsunobu Kato	Masaaki Taira	Tsutomu Takebe	Fumio Kishida	Norio Mitsuya
	Katsuyuki Kawai	Naokazu Takemoto	Yaichi Tanigawa	Tetsushi Sakamoto	Mitsuhiro Miyakoshi
	Minoru Kiuchi	Keiichiro Tachibana	Hiroshi Hase	Isshu Sugawara	Yoshio Mochizuki
	Genichiro Sata	Koichi Tani	Hirokazu Matsuno	Wataru Takeshita	Kozo Yamamoto
	Masahiko Shibayama	Gen Nakatani	Mitsuhide Iwaki	Akira Nishino	Jiro Aichi
	Yoshitaka Shindō	Keiko Nagaoka	Naoki Okada	Takeshi Noda	Yoshihiko Isozaki
	Sanae Takaichi	Shunichi Yamaguchi	Yoriko Kawaguchi	Motoo Hayashi	Kuniko Inoguchi
	Keiji Furuya	Taku Yamamoto	Seiji Suzuki	Katsuei Hirasawa	Yoshito Kajiya
	Haruko Arimura	Hiroo Ishii	Chūichi Date	Midori Ishii	Genjiro Kaneko
	Yōsuke Isozaki	Satsuki Katayama	Gaku Hasegawa	Masaharu Nakagawa	Yutaka Kumagai
	Hiroshige Sekō	Kenji Kosaka	Masako Mori	Hirohiko Nakamura	Yōsuke Tsuruho
	Ichiro Tsukada	Masahisa Sato	Masaaki Yamazaki	Tetsuro Nomura	Motoyuki Fujii
	Shoji Nishida	Yūsuke Nakanishi	Junzo Yamamoto	Hiromi Yoshida	Seiji Matsuyama
	Shinpei Matsushita	Junko Mihara	Kenta Wakabayashi	Masashi Waki	Toshiei Mizuochi

Results

Full result

Candidate	1st Round								2nd Round
	Diet members		Party members			Total			Diet members
	Votes	%	Popular votes	Allocated votes	%	Votes		%	Votes		%
Shinzo Abe 当	54	27.41	140,668	87	29.00	141		28.37	108		54.82
Shigeru Ishiba	34	17.26	233,376	165	55.00	199		40.04	89		45.18
Nobuteru Ishihara	58	29.44	74,552	38	12.67	96		19.32	Eliminated
Nobutaka Machimura	27	13.71	26,463	7	2.33	34		6.84	Eliminated
Yoshimasa Hayashi	24	12.18	16,246	3	1.00	27		5.43	Eliminated
Total	197	100.00	491,305	300	100.00	497		100.00	197		100.00

Ishiba overtook the other candidates to take first place, but failed to win a majority of the votes and ended up in a runoff vote with Abe, the runner-up. As a result of the runoff vote, Abe reversed Ishiba and was elected.^[3]