Yuriko Koike presents herself as a crusader on a mission to overturn the status quo

yesterday by: Joji Sakurai

The global rage for upsetting the established order shows signs of having reached Japan. Tokyo’s first female governor, Yuriko Koike, humiliated prime minister Shinzo Abe earlier this month by leading her newly formed political party to a commanding victory over Mr Abe’s ruling Liberal Democrats in elections for the capital’s assembly.

This leaves the former newscaster positioned as a viable alternative to Mr Abe, who until recently appeared to have a firm grip on power. Already under pressure, Mr Abe announced he will reshuffle his cabinet next month as his approval rating sank to its lowest level since he took power in 2012.

Ms Koike presents herself as a kind of anti-Abe — a reformist crusader on a mission to overturn the status quo. It is not clear, though, that she represents a plan B or alternative to “Abenomics”, the prime minister’s blueprint for reviving Japan’s fortunes.

For one thing, Ms Koike is in many ways Mr Abe’s ideological sister, sharing both his commitment to growth-promoting economic liberalisation and his penchant for conservative nationalism. Until recently, she was a member of his Liberal Democratic party.

During her campaign for the Tokyo governorship last year, Ms Koike vowed to “make Abenomics take off from Tokyo”. She was referring in particular to what Mr Abe has called the “third arrow” of structural reform, promising that the capital would be the “gravitational force of the growth strategy”. As governor, she surprised many by supporting the prime minister’s plan for special economic zones. And she is the staunchest proponent of Mr Abe’s vision of female empowerment, which he calls “Womenomics”.

Ironically, Ms Koike’s victory could be the best thing that has happened to Mr Abe in months. Faced with a credible threat in the shape of the Tokyo governor, Mr Abe will need to listen to the people and turn his attention back to the economy — and away from his pet project of constitutional reform, which would put Japan on the path to having a real army.

Ms Koike may shake Mr Abe out of the complacency into which he has fallen thanks to the thumping majority he enjoys in both houses of parliament. Ms Koike, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton, should be setting her sights on Japan’s top job. But she would be well-advised to be patient. If she tries to emulate, say, Emmanuel Macron’s lightning path to power in France, she may well discover — like many Japanese reformers in the past — that she lacks the clout or power base to carry out any of her plans.

It may serve Ms Koike’s interests, therefore, to sit out her next opportunity to grab the premiership, in 2018. She should strive first to be a successful governor of Tokyo. In that role she enjoys a huge legislative mandate, as well as great executive power, in a city that has the population and gross domestic product of a mid-sized advanced nation.

She should fulfil her promise to launch Mr Abe’s third arrow from Tokyo — perhaps in spite of the prime minister himself. She should ensure a dazzling Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020. This would guarantee her immense kudos, rekindling memories of the 1964 Tokyo games, a landmark event which symbolised the country’s recovery after the devastation of the second world war.

The task will be formidable, for “To-cho”, as Tokyo City Hall is known, is notorious for the influential “dons” who operate behind the scenes. That would be ample preparation for exercising national leadership in Nagatacho, the government district. If Ms Koike fulfils her mission of being a transformative Tokyo governor, she will be in a position to launch a bid for the premiership after 2020. And she will have sufficient executive experience to have a chance of making her tenure a success.