Japan's ruling liberal democratic party or ldp held its leadership runoff election. The last round was between two former foreign ministers. Kishida fumio and kotaro. Mr kushida came out on top. The ldp has dominated japanese politics since its founding in the nineteen fifties. So the party's new. President will be the country's new prime minister when tsuyoshi he steps down toy so in his victory speech. Mr kishida said that from today. I will with all of my energy. Get straight to work. How and where he will channel that energy though is still something of an open question as is how much. The electorate will support him. This year's election for the presidency was more unpredictable than most heading into the vote. Today there was some some genuine uncertainty about who would emerge the victor noah. Sneider is the economists. Tokyo bureau chief but this kind of free for all uncertain circus like for the mvp at least election campaign. I think really master distracted from deeper and more worrying trend in japanese politics namely growing voter apathy and disillusionment from the political process and given that apathy. How do you think it is that. Mr kishida came out on top. The dynamics of this election were a bit complicated. But let's unpack them. Konno tato former foreign and defense minister was the favourite in public and the favourite amongst younger diet members in the ldp who saw him as potentially more transformative figure who also crucially might help them keep their jobs in elections that are looming in later. This fall masan however is unpopular amongst. The party's old guard and and they see him sort of unreliable uncontrollable. He has a reputation for being a bit of a maverick so he won. The the vote of the rank and file in the first round of the party's election but he didn't win enough support amongst his colleagues to win the election outright so it went into a second round run-off there to she support from within the party really proved decisive. It is i think a result that reflects the enduring strength of the ldp's establishment and is in some ways the kind of rebuke of public