Word: consensus
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Even in the 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...
...There was a general consensus that people just hadn’t heard about it,” said Kevin R. McMullen ’08, who was present on Wednesday...
...statesmen to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are memorialized. Meanwhile, Fukuda's father was an LDP stalwart who while PM promoted diplomatic relations with Asia through "heart-to-heart" dialogue. And guess what? That's what Fukuda, a former Chief Cabinet Secretary, peddles himself as today: a consensus-driven political insider who opposes Yasukuni visits because they alienate Japan's neighbors. The country's enormous public debt? A scandal-ridden pension system? A bloated bureaucracy? Neither Fukuda nor Aso has dedicated much campaign time to such issues...
...Syrian opposition led by the powerful militant Shi'ite Hizballah have been at loggerheads for months over the identity of the next President. In Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, the presidency is reserved for Maronite Catholics. Several contenders have announced their candidacy, although no clear consensus has yet emerged that would satisfy both factions. The March 14 block is pushing to elect one of their own, but the opposition has threatened to form a second rival government if an acceptable candidate is not found...
With Aso seen as damaged goods, a consensus rapidly formed around Fukuda, a safe if dull choice who wouldn't hurt the LDP, as Abe, who led the party to an historic electoral defeat at the end of July, so clearly had. "This is a self-preservation move for the party," says Carol Gluck, a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University. "This is seen in the party as a safer choice for regrouping the LDP." Even Fukuda himself seemed to recognize that he was parachuting into a caretaker role. "Our party faces an emergency," he told LDP members gathered...