Keizo Obuchi was elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party on Friday, defeating two rivals by a large margin in a race held to replace the departing LDP leader, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.
In a secret vote by 365 of the party's 367 Diet members plus one delegate from each of the party's 47 prefectural chapters, Obuchi won 225 votes against 102 votes cast for former Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiroku Kajiyama and 84 for Health and Welfare Minister Junichiro Koizumi. One vote was counted as invalid.
Obuchi won 19 more votes than what he needed to ensure victory in the first ballot. Contrary to earlier expectations, votes for Kajiyama outnumbered those for Koizumi.