Japan's parliament elected Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister, as the country's 100th prime minister on Monday, soon after his predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, resigned along with his Cabinet. Kishida will be formally sworn in later Monday, and he is expected to retain two Cabinet ministers, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, and replace the other 18. Most of the new Cabinet ministers will reportedly be from factions that supported Kishida when he won the leadership race for Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party last week.
Kishida's first priorities will be to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control and boost the LDP's population before parliamentary elections in mid-November. A 64-year-old third-generation politician, Kishida "used to be known as a dovish moderate but turned hawkish apparently to win over influential conservatives in the party," The Associated Press reports. "He is firmly entrenched in the conservative establishment and his victory in the party election was a choice for continuity and stability over change."
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