How Will Takaichi Emulate Her Political Role Models, Thatcher and Abe?

By Hiroshi Tajima

8:00 JST, December 13, 2025

Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, has two role models in politics. One is Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom, who served from 1979 to 1990. The other is former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, under whom Takaichi was a cabinet minister.

“I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top but should get you pretty near.”

These words are Thatcher’s. The working style is true of Takaichi as well.

Takaichi has said she read through all the volumes of Thatcher’s memoirs in 1993, the year she was first elected as a member of the House of Representatives. The books have certainly laid the groundwork for her as a lawmaker. She also told us that she still turns the pages of those books even now.

In a speech shortly after winning the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election, Takaichi, wearing a blue suit like those favored by Thatcher, made this pledge to her colleagues: “I will work, work, work, work and work. I will abandon work-life balance. I will have everyone work like a cart horse.”

Takaichi’s “work” vow was named Japan’s best buzzword of the year. There is no doubt that Thatcher’s words inspired her. Thatcher also said, “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” True to these words, Takaichi achieved her ambition on her third run for LDP president. Thatcher and Takaichi share a similar upbringing in that each was born into an ordinary family.

The similarities don’t end there. Thatcher was more focused on standing up for her beliefs than making friends. Takaichi has been known as a lone wolf in LDP lawmaker circles. She avoids the nightly meetings and parties where Japanese politicians hobnob day after day. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, her immediate predecessor, was another politician with few friends. An LDP veteran lamented the idea that there have been two prime ministers in a row with so few friends, though Takaichi seems unconcerned.

This too is a Thatcher-like quality. To quote the British leader again: “If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you would achieve nothing.” Takaichi seems to have taken this to heart.

In practical terms, she also models herself after Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who was in office from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. Takaichi has appointed former top Abe aide Takaya Imai as a special advisor to her Cabinet. She also named Keiichi Ichikawa, who drafted the Abe administration’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy as secretary general of the National Security Secretariat. Her economic policy, which she calls “Sanaenomics,” resembles “Abenomics” in that it implements an aggressive fiscal stimulus package.

In her first speech to the Diet, Takaichi declared, quoting Abe, “We will restore Japan’s diplomacy to bloom on the world’s center stage.” The phrase was apparently intended to signal both domestically and internationally that she is Abe’s successor.

Abe and Thatcher are similar to each other not only in their conservative politics but also in their historic long-term leadership. In addition, like Thatcher, who was known as the “Iron Lady,” Abe was also a “politician of conviction.”

However, a difference can be seen in the policy management style of the two former prime ministers. One of Abe’s characteristics was his thoroughgoing realism. He had flexibility and sometimes chose to pursue liberal policies, such as labor policies including the introduction of equal pay for equal work and regulation of working hours. On the other hand, Thatcher’s economic policy, known as “Thatcherism,” was thoroughly aimed at achieving “small government” through fiscal tightening

Recently, I heard from his former aides that Abe, who died in 2022, gave Takaichi some advice directly based on his experience: “Don’t do your job alone.”

And he also said this: “I am choosing policies at the edge of what can be realistically achieved. If you wish I would do more, you can do it yourself after you become prime minister.”

I wonder whether Takaichi will adopt Thatcher’s “Iron Lady” mode or follow Abe’s path of realism. She will no doubt be balancing between the styles of two historic leaders, and her choices will determine her fate as a leader.

Political Pulse appears every Saturday.

Hiroshi Tajima

Hiroshi Tajima is a staff writer in the Political News Department of The Yomiuri Shimbun.