By Hu Xuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-12 22:18

Above: A woman reads a special edition paper reporting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision to resign in Tokyo Wednesday. Inset: Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Taro Aso smiles as he heads to a party meeting at the parliament in Tokyo yesterday. Reuters

Hawkish Aso Leads Field to Succeed Abe

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is likely to pick a successor to resigning Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next Wednesday, public broadcaster NHK reported last night.

Abe abruptly announced his resignation yesterday after a year in power which has been dogged by scandals, an Upper House election rout and the current crisis over Japan's support for US-led operations in Afghanistan.

The party will pick a new leader, who will automatically become prime minister because the LDP leads Japan's ruling coalition.

Most observers put hawkish former foreign minister Taro Aso, 66 at the head of the field.

Aso, who is currently No 2 in the ruling LDP contested Abe in the party leadership race in September last year. Known as an outspoken conservative, he served as internal affairs minister and top planning chief under Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. During his stint as foreign minister Sino-Japanese relations declined, partially through his branding China a "military threat".

In status-conscious Japan Aso may hold an additional trump card through being grandson of the late Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.

In contrast to Aso's aggressive style is 62-year-old Sadakazu Tanigaki, who has stressed the need for Japan to repair relations with neighbors China and South Korea.

Finance minister under Koizumi and a former minister in charge of industrial revitalization, Tanigaki also ran against Abe in the LDP leadership race. He was a lawyer before entering politics.

Other faces making and entry in the race could include Yasuo Fukuda, 71, a former top government spokesman. Fukuda was one of the leading contenders, along with Abe, Aso and Tanigaki, to replace Koizumi, but he dropped out before the formal race, citing his age. Son of former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, he worked in a petroleum company and later served as political secretary to his father. Fukuda has also argued for closer ties with China and opposes visits by Japanese leaders to the Ysukuni war shrine in Tokyo.

Kaoru Yosano, 69, may also contest the leadership. Appointed chief Cabinet secretary in a recent reshuffle, he has served as trade minister and education minister and is known as a strong supporter of fiscal reform.

Meanwhile speculation refuses to die that flamboyant Koizumi, 65, who served as prime minister for five years, could be called back to take over the leadership.

The political maverick topped a newspaper poll last month as the voters' choice to succeed Abe and still serves in parliament.

Rarely out of the public eye while in office, Koizumi is known as a reformer who shook up the LDP, before leading it to a landslide Lower House election victory in 2005.

Despite his successes at home however, Koizumi stressed Japan's international ties with his visits to Yasukuni shrine and his deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq. Koizumi himself said last year just before leaving office that he would enjoy his freedom. When asked if he was sorry to leave his official residence, he was quoted as saying "No, no, I will be free."

 

      1   2     

      1   2