TOKYO —

       Former Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida won the ruling party’s leadership contest Wednesday and is set to become the country’s next prime minister. He faces the imminent tasks of reviving a pandemic-hit economy and ensuring a strong alliance with the U.S. to counter growing regional security risks.

       Kishida replaces the outgoing leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is stepping down after serving only one year in office.

       For the record:

       12:19 a.m. Sept. 29, 2021A previous photo on this story misidentified outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

       As the LDP’s new leader, Kishida is certain to be elected prime minister Monday in parliament, which is controlled by his party and its coalition partner.

       Kishida beat Taro Kono, the popular vaccinations minister, in the LDP leadership runoff election after finishing only one vote ahead of him in the first round. None of the four candidates, including two women, was able to win a majority in that opening round.

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       Results showed that Kishida had more support from party heavyweights who apparently chose stability over the change advocated by Kono, who is known as something of a maverick.

       Still, Kishida will be under pressure to change the LDP’s high-handed reputation, which was worsened by Suga, who angered the public over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his insistence on holding the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

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       The long-ruling conservative LDP needs to quickly turn around plunging public support ahead of lower-house elections that are due sometime in the next two months.

       Kishida called for growth and distribution under his plan of “new capitalism,” saying that the economy under Japan’s longest-serving premier, Shinzo Abe, had benefited only big companies.

       Little change is expected in key diplomatic and security policies under the new leader, said Yu Uchiyama, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo.

       All of the candidates expressed support for close Japan-U.S. security ties and for partnerships with like-minded democracies in Asia and Europe, in part to counter China’s growing influence and a threat from North Korea.

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       Wednesday’s vote was seen as a test of whether the party could move out of Abe’s shadow. His influence in government and party affairs has largely muzzled diverse views and shifted the party to the right.

       Kishida is seen as someone who can prolong an era of unusual political stability amid fears that Japan could return to “revolving door” leadership.

       “Concern is not about individuals but stability of Japanese politics,” Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a briefing ahead of the vote. “It’s about whether or not we are entering a period in Japanese politics of instability and short-term prime ministership. It makes it very hard to move forward on agenda.”

       Suga is leaving only a year after taking office as a replacement for Abe, who resigned suddenly over health problems, ending his nearly eight-year premiership, the longest in Japan’s constitutional history.