Word: aso
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...consensus-driven culture of the Japanese media, the national dailies' lockstep front-page declaration on Sunday morning - PRIME MINISTER FUKUDA TO BE ELECTED TODAY - was an example of just how predetermined the race to replace Prime Minster Shinzo Abe was. Yasuo Fukuda's formal victory over his rival Taro Aso as the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and, effectively, Prime Minister later that day merely made official what the country had known since Fukuda first threw his hat in the race. The two candidates fought over 528 votes - 387 LDP parliamentarian votes and 141 votes from...
...wasn't always this way. Before Prime Minister Abe unexpectedly announced his resignation on Sept. 12, Aso, his outspoken party secretary general, was long considered the successor to Abe's conservative administration. However, the moment Abe's resignation hit the airwaves, the LDP's factional politics went into high gear - and within 24 hours, 71-year-old Fukuda, who only last year declined to run for Prime Minister due to his old age, was the indisputable front-runner in the two-man race...
...Japan, long held up as the paragon of a mature Asian democracy, yet which continues to serve up political leaders distinguishable only by subtleties of grey in their ideological coloration. Yasuo Fukuda, the leading candidate to replace Shinzo Abe as Japan's next PM, and Fukuda's rival, Taro Aso, appear to be trying to differentiate themselves as the Sept. 23 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) election approaches. Aso is pegged as a tough-talking hawk, Fukuda a diplomatic dove. But both are products of a political system dominated not by people with the right ideas, but by people with...
...fact, the majority of Japanese oppose the country's naval mission. Yet Aso and Fukuda, like Abe, both support extending Japanese refueling, and they have other things in common. Their family political DNA runs deep. Aso's grandfather was Shigeru Yoshida, a China-bashing leader who called for Japan to rely on American military protection so it could focus on developing an export-led economy. Fast-forward half a century and Aso, a former Foreign Minister, staunchly supports the U.S.-Japan security alliance, while antagonizing China by defending visits of Japanese statesmen to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals...
...better than an old guard. Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, himself heir to a minor political dynasty, created the impression of trimming family political ties by installing private-sector civilians in key leadership posts. But Abe's most recent Cabinet re-embraced the political nobility - and neither Fukuda nor Aso can be counted on to do anything very different...