Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership candidates in September.
Photographer: Eugene Hoshiko/POOL/EPA/Shutterstock
The Party That Ruled Japan for Decades Is in Danger of Crumbling
The Liberal Democratic Party picks a new leader as it struggles to restore its fortunes
Haruo Tsukamoto, 74, is facing what he calls the hardest political choice of his life: who he should vote for to become Japan’s next prime minister, and whether he should keep backing the party he has supported for decades.
The sixth-generation rice farmer in Ibaraki, northeast of Tokyo, is one of nearly a million rank-and-file members of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party eligible to vote in a leadership race on Oct. 4. The party has dominated Japanese politics for most of the postwar era, and its leader almost always becomes prime minister.