A crucial party election Friday will determine Japan's new prime minister

TOKYO (AP) — A crucial party election in Japan on Friday will determine the nation's new prime minister.

The vote by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will technically choose a new party leader, but since the party has a decades-long stranglehold on power, the winner will become prime minister when the current leadership resigns on Tuesday.

The current p rime minister, Fumio Kishida, has been dogged by corruption scandals, and his party is looking for a fresh leader to try to regain public trust. A record nine lawmakers, including two women, are vying for the job.

The vote is limited to LDP members of parliament and about 1 million dues-paying party members. That's only 1% of eligible voters.

Past votes were often determined by the party’s powerful faction leaders, but that may change this time because all but one of the six factions has announced their dissolution following the corruption scandals.

There's widespread worry among experts that the removal of faction support from whoever wins could mean Japan will return to an era similar to the early 2000s, which saw “revolving door” leadership changes and political instability.

A succession of short-lived governments hurts Japanese prime ministers' ability to set up long-term policy goals or develop trusted relations with other leaders.

Backroom dealing among party heavyweights makes this election hard to predict, but Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister, has steadily ranked No. 1 in media surveys. Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of a former popular prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is behind Ishiba. Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, an Abe protege and staunch conservative who ran against Kishida in 2021, is third by a narrow margin.

Experts say two of the three are expected to advance to a runoff.

If one of the women wins the vote — Takaichi or Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa — she would become Japan’s first female leader.

Women make up only 10.3% of Japan’s lower house of parliament. That makes the country 163rd for female representation among 190 countries examined in an April report by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union.

On Tuesday, Kishida and his Cabinet ministers will resign. The new leader, after a parliamentary endorsement, will then form a new Cabinet later in the day.

The main opposition — the liberal-leaning Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan — has struggled to build momentum, despite the LDP scandals.

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