A leadership election was held in the Liberal Democratic Party

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...

 of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 on 20 September 2006 after the incumbent party leader and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi

Junichiro Koizumi

is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics when his term in parliament ended.Widely seen as a maverick leader of the Liberal Democratic Party , he became known as an economic reformer, focusing on Japan's government debt and the...

 announced his intention to resign, a year after he led the party to victory in a snap election. Shinzō Abe

Shinzo Abe

was the 90th Prime Minister of Japan, elected by a special session of the National Diet on 26 September 2006. He was Japan's youngest post–World War II prime minister and the first born after the war. Abe served as prime minister for nearly twelve months, before resigning on 12 September 2007...

 won the election, (only to resign a year later triggering another leadership election

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) leadership election, 2007

A leadership election was held in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan on 23 September 2007 after the incumbent party leader and Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe announced that he would resign on 12 September 2007. Abe had only been elected to the post slightly less than a year earlier; his...

). His chief competitors for the position were Sadakazu Tanigaki

Sadakazu Tanigaki

is a conservative Japanese politician who served as Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2006, in the cabinet of Jun'ichirō Koizumi. He also served as Minister of Construction and Transport in the cabinet of Yasuo Fukuda and is serving his ninth term as a member of the House of Representatives,...

 and Taro Aso

Taro Aso

was the 92nd Prime Minister of Japan serving from September 2008 to September 2009, and was defeated in the August 2009 election.He has served in the House of Representatives since 1979. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2007, and was Secretary-General of the LDP briefly in 2007 and...

. Yasuo Fukuda

Yasuo Fukuda

was the 91st Prime Minister of Japan, serving from 2007 to 2008. He was previously the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, serving for three and a half years under Prime Ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi....

 was a leading early contender, but ultimately chose not to run. Former Prime Minister Yoshirō Mori

Yoshiro Mori

is a Japanese politician who served as the 85th and 86th Prime Minister of Japan starting at 5 April 2000 ending 26 April 2001. Described as having "the heart of a flea and the brain of a shark," he was an unpopular prime minister mainly remembered today for his many gaffes and situationally...

, to whose faction both Abe and Fukuda belonged, stated that the faction strongly leant toward Abe. Abe was subsequently elected Prime Minister with 339 of 475 votes in the Diet's lower house

House of Representatives of Japan

The is the lower house of the Diet of Japan. The House of Councillors of Japan is the upper house.The House of Representatives has 480 members, elected for a four-year term. Of these, 180 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation,...

 and a firm majority in the upper house

House of Councillors

The is the upper house of the Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, or designation of the prime minister, the House of Representatives...

.

Results

Candidates	Members	Party	Total
Shinzō Abe	267	197	464
Sadakazu Tanigaki	66	36	102
Tarō Asō	69	67	136
Grand Total	402	300	702