Fumio Kishida was reconfirmed as prime minister Wednesday at plenary sessions of both chambers of the Diet in a special session convened following the House of Representative election.
The prime minister will inaugurate his second Cabinet on the same evening, newly appointing former education minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, 60, as foreign minister. All other ministers were to be reappointed from the first Kishida Cabinet.
Kishida had concurrently held the post of foreign minister, a position previously filled by Toshimitsu Motegi in his first Cabinet. Motegi stepped down as foreign minister to replace Akira Amari as Liberal Democratic Party secretary general after Amari resigned over his defeat in his single-seat constituency in the election.
The first Kishida Cabinet resigned en masse at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning.
Prior to the Diet vote on the prime minister, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, 77, of the LDP was elected as lower house speaker, and former economy minister Banri Kaieda, 72, of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan was chosen as the vice speaker during the afternoon plenary session.
After being nominated as prime minister, Kishida will meet with Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi to confirm that the two parties will maintain the ruling coalition. After that, he will set up a Cabinet formation headquarters at the Prime Minister's Office.
Since it has only been a brief time since the first Kishida Cabinet was formed, all members except Hayashi will be reappointed.
Hayashi told reporters Wednesday morning, "I will fulfill my heavy responsibilities and support the Kishida administration."
Kishida will hold a Cabinet meeting in the evening after attending his investiture ceremony and an attestation ceremony for newly appointed ministers at the Imperial Palace, and after holding a press conference.
At the press conference, Kishida will pledge to make every effort to realize a new form of capitalism, or a virtuous cycle of growth and wealth distribution, which he proposed in the recent election campaign. He also will explain his government's basic policies on a possible surge in coronavirus infections.
The special Diet session will be held through Friday. The government and the ruling parties plan to convene an extraordinary Diet session in early December and aim to pass a supplementary budget for fiscal 2021 that includes economic measures by the end of the year.
The debate between the ruling and opposition parties will be carried over to the extraordinary session.
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