S/ Nukaga Fukushiro, Speaker for the House of Representatives

 “I announce that Ishiba Shigeru is the elected Prime minister, after the runoff result.”

Ishiba Shigeru was chosen as Japan's prime minister again in a parliamentary runoff vote on November 11.

This was the first time in 30 years that  voting in the Diet for prime minister went into a runoff after none of the candidates won a majority in the first round.

In the runoff, Ishiba, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, won 221 votes against 160 for Noda Yoshihiko, head of the largest opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.The remaining 84 ballots for lawmakers other than these two were deemed invalid.

Some LDP lawmakers noted that the inability for opposition parties to unite in support of Noda made it possible for the LDP to become a minority ruling party.

Ishiba will form his new Cabinet later in the day.

His reelection came two weeks after his LDP failed to secure a majority in the lower house, both alone and in combination with its coalition partner Komeito, following the House of Representatives election.

Ishiba will have to work on gaining cooperation from opposition parties to run the government.

He began such efforts by holding separate talks earlier on November 11 with Noda and with Tamaki Yuichiro, head of the Democratic Party for the People.

In the meetings, the opposition leaders called for political reforms including the abolition of the LDP's policy activity fees for party members and making public how parliamentary allowances are spent.

The DPP is seeking to raise the tax-exempt income threshold from the current 1.03 million yen to 1.78 million yen and reduce gasoline taxes.