The historic election defeat in July has prompted the Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to resign.
Ishiba announced that he is no longer the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
He has resisted calls to step down since July within the party saying he wanted to finalize the tariff deal with the United States.
On Thursday, the United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order to slash tariffs on Japanese car imports from 27.5% to 15%, formalizing an earlier agreement announced in July.
Shigeru Ishiba the 68-year-old is a devoted Liberal Democrat.
He was first elected to the House of Representative in 1986 at the age of 29.
In 2002 Ishiba was appointed Director General of the Japan Defense Agency while in 2007 was the minister of Defense under Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
He has been Prime minister since 1st October 2024 but was elected Liberal Party President on 27th September 2024.
During this period his party has seen electoral losses in both houses of parliament.
Voters voiced concerns of rising cost of living and the electoral defeats have made it difficult for his government to implement policies.
There are reports that the agricultural minister and a former prime minister visited him and persuaded him to resign.
Liberal Democratic Party was due to elect on whether to hold an early leadership election that has now been confirmed by events.
His potential successors include the conservative Sanae Takaichi, who narrowly lost to Ishiba in last year’s LDP run-off election, and Shinjiro Koizumi, the current farming minister whose family has long been involved in Japanese politics.
