TOKYO — Japan’s governing party leader, Sanae Takaichi, is on track to become the country’s first female prime minister, after finding a badly needed replacement for a crucial partner that left her Liberal Democratic Party’s coalition.

Takaichi, 64, would replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tuesday’s parliamentary vote. If she’s successful, it would end Japan’s three-month political vacuum and wrangling since the coalition’s loss in the July parliamentary election.

The moderate centrist Komeito party split from the LDP after a 26-year-long coalition. The move by Komeito came days after Takaichi’s election as president of her party, and it forced her into a desperate search for a replacement to secure votes so that she can become prime minister.

The Buddhist-backed Komeito left afte

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