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Rob Fahey
@robfahey.net

The campaigning for today's LDP leadership election has largely been very dull, enlivened only by Takaichi speed-running the Kemi Badenoch "politics is when you see stuff on Twitter and then make a speech insisting it's true" path to insanity. Most predictions seem to think it's Koizumi's moment.

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Rob Fahey
@robfahey.net

Takaichi is almost certain to make it to a run-off round, though, as she remains popular with local party members (who have skewed hard right since the pandemic). One striking figure is that there are ~140,000 less party members voting this time than a year ago - membership is in freefall.

Rob Fahey
@robfahey.net

I've seen suggestions that declining membership is bad for Takaichi because it implies defections to Sanseito etc.; I'm not convinced. Anecdotally, I've heard of insiders bemoaning older, more moderate members abandoning party meetings increasingly dominated by Twitter-brained conspiracy theorists.

Rob Fahey
@robfahey.net

Party membership votes don't count for much in the run-off, and it's hard to see lawmakers opting for her: even if they're nervous about the threat of Sanseito, she's by far the most likely candidate to collapse the fragile minority government arrangement and force a disastrous early election.