Takaichi, the only woman among the five LDP candidates, prevailed in a run-off against the more moderate Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, who was bidding to become Japan's youngest modern leader. A former economic security and internal affairs minister with an expansionary fiscal agenda for the world's fourth-largest economy, Takaichi takes over a party in crisis. An advocate of late premier Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" strategy to boost the economy with aggressive spending and easy monetary policy, she has previously criticised the Bank of Japan's interest rate increases. If elected prime minister, Takaichi said she would travel overseas more regularly than her predecessor to spread the word that "Japan is Back!" Some of her supporters viewed her selection as a watershed in Japan's male-dominated politics.