Former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday he will run in the leadership race of Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party, pitting him against Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
"I will present new (policy) options by staking my political career" on this race, Kishida said at a news conference as he announced his bid for the Sept. 29 LDP presidential election, making it his second challenge for the top LDP post since September 2020.
Kishida, 64, suggested he would launch tough measures against the COVID-19 pandemics, saying, "We need to keep in mind the worst case scenarios."
Kishida, who heads an LDP faction with over 40 members, is an advocate for nuclear disarmament and helped realize the 2016 visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting U.S. president to the atomic bombed city.
Under Kishida's watch as foreign minister, Japan and South Korea reached a "final" agreement in late 2015 over the issue of comfort women in wartime Japanese military brothels.
Kishida said that if he were elected LDP president, he would limit the terms of LDP executives -- excluding the president -- to up to three years, a measure he said would prevent the concentration of power.
"Holding the party's presidential election, including with Prime Minister Suga, we want to regain people's confidence and safeguard democracy," he said.
In his first bid for the 2020 LDP presidential election, Kishida, who hails from a political family in Hiroshima, came second after Suga. Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba came third.
Known for his measured, unemotional demeanor, Kishida served as foreign minister and chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
A graduate of Waseda University, Kishida worked for a bank before his election to the House of Representatives in 1993. He has been elected to the lower house nine times.
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