The is the second highest-ranking officer of the executive branch of the

government of Japan The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state ...

after the

prime minister of Japan The prime minister of Japan ( Japanese: 内閣総理大臣, Hepburn: ''Naikaku Sōri-Daijin'') is the head of government of Japan. The prime minister chairs the Cabinet of Japan and has the ability to select and dismiss its Ministers of S ...

, and ranks first in the line of succession to the prime minister. The office of the deputy prime minister is not a permanent position, and exists only at the discretion of the

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

. The deputy prime minister is appointed by the prime minister and must be a member of the cabinet, for instance Taro Aso served as

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

concurrently. Unlike the

vice president of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice p ...

, the deputy prime minister does not automatically become the

, should the latter be incapacitated or resign, but instead exercises the duties of the prime minister until the

National Diet The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paral ...

elects a successor. However, when Prime Minister

Tanzan Ishibashi was a Japanese journalist, Nichiren Buddhist priest, and politician who was Prime Minister of Japan for two months from 1956 to 1957, before resigning due to illness. He simultaneously served as Director General of the Japan Defense Agency. ...

resigned in 1957, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister

Nobusuke Kishi was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Known for his exploitative rule of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Northeast China in the 1930s, Kishi was nicknamed the "Monster of the Sh� ...

(grandfather of

Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...

and

Nobuo Kishi is a Japanese politician who serves as the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for National Security Policy and Nuclear Disarmament Issues. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party, he previously served as Minister of Defense of Japan from S ...

) took the office of acting prime minister, and was officially elected by the

a month later. Tarō Asō was the longest-serving deputy prime minister. This position is currently vacant since 4 October 2021.

List of deputy prime ministers of Japan

References

* ''Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary'', Kenkyusha Limited, Tokyo 1991, {{DEFAULTSORT:Deputy Prime Minister Of Japan Politics of Japan *