TOKYO – Japan's parliament is set to elect ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country’s first female prime minister Tuesday, one day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner that would pull her governing bloc further to the right.

Takaichi will replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, ending a three-month political vacuum and wrangling since the Liberal Democratic Party's disastrous election loss in July.

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Ishiba, who lasted only one year in office, resigned with his Cabinet earlier Tuesday, paving the way for his successor.

The LDP's off-the-cuff alliance with the Osaka-based rightwing Japan Innovation Party, or Ishin no Kai, ensures her premiership in a vote later in the day because the opposition is not united. Takaichi's untested

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