Taro Aso, Japan’s former foreign minister, was on Monday night poised to become the country’s fourth prime minister in just over two years after easily winning an election to head the ruling Liberal Democratic party.

Mr Aso, 68, beat Kaoru Yosano, the fiscally conservative economics minister, by 351 votes to 66, while Yuriko Koike, the first woman to compete for the job, was a distant third with 46.