237 votes for Takaichi Sanae (高市 早苗) on the first ballot in the Lower House. It's official, she will become Japan's first woman prime minister.
Interestingly, she worked for Democratic (and liberal) Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado as a congressional fellow in the late 1980s, when Takaichi was in her mid-twenties. Either she was still forming her political views or she didn't know enough about American politics to realize who she was working for, but for most of her political career she has been conservative to very right wing.
Koizumi Junior will become Defense Minister. I haven't seen a full cabinet lineup yet. Always interested in who the ministers with large research portfolios are, though I rarely know enough about them to have an opinion.
In the photo (mobile phone photo of a television) at the top, Takaichi sits in front of three former prime ministers at the back of the Diet Lower House. I know so little about Japanese parliamentary procedures that I have no idea how the seating chart works. (Actually, there are many more important things I also don't know.)
