Takaichi reelected as Japan PM at Diet after LDP's huge election win

Before the start of the 150-day session, Takaichi's Cabinet resigned en masse, as required by the Constitution. She is set to form a new Cabinet later in the day, though no major changes are expected for the sake of continuity.

Takaichi, known for her hawkish views on defense and security, received overwhelming majority support with 354 votes in the lower house, controlled by her ruling coalition.

In the House of Councillors, where the ruling camp remains a minority, she was elected prime minister in a runoff vote by winning 125 against 65 for her rival and opposition leader.

All her ministers, including Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama and Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, are expected to retain the posts they held in Takaichi's first Cabinet formed after she became LDP leader and subsequently prime minister in October.

In a minor change to its party executive lineup, the LDP is considering naming former industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who was involved in a high-profile slush fund scandal, as its new election strategy headquarters chief, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Takaichi is expected to hold a press conference on Wednesday night to explain her "responsible yet aggressive" fiscal policy and plan to suspend the consumption tax on food products for two years.

The powerful lower house elected Eisuke Mori, a veteran LDP lawmaker and former justice minister, as its speaker and Keiichi Ishii, a member of the chamber's main opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, as vice speaker.

Ishii is a former leader of the Komeito party, which established the CRA last month with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan for their lower house members. In October, Komeito ended its 26-year partnership with the LDP, which then formed a new ruling coalition with the Japan Innovation Party later that month.

In the general election, the conservative LDP gained a record 316 of the 465 seats in the lower house, up from 198 before the contest, the first time a single party has secured a supermajority in the postwar era.

Earlier, it was reported that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had been spotlighted as the “world’s most powerful woman” in the latest edition of the British magazine The Economist, following her ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s overwhelming victory in a snap general election.