Singapore: From a pink-haired, heavy metal rocker in her youth to one of Japan’s leading arch-conservative lawmakers, Sanae Takaichi found her political idol in Britain’s Margaret Thatcher.

Now she is poised to emulate Thatcher and shatter the ultimate glass ceiling by becoming her country’s first female prime minister, and shifting her party’s political agenda to the right.

“My goal is to become the ‘Iron Lady’,” Takaichi said recently as she made her third attempt to win the presidency of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Her critics in the party’s more moderate ranks allegedly have a different nickname for her —“Taliban Takaichi”, due to her hardline conservative views.

The former economics security minister was successful at a party leadership ballot on Saturday after

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