Search Details

Word: ldp (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first (reverse)


Usage:

...public support, and that a different leader might be able to carry Japan out of the political quagmire his deep unpopularity had created. "I've decided to create a new situation by resigning," the 52-year-old Abe told a national TV audience. Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - which has a solid majority in the Diet's Lower House and therefore controls the government - announced that it would hold leadership elections on Sept. 19 to choose the country's next Prime Minister. The top candidate is LDP Secretary-General and former Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who emerged...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: After Abe's Exit, Will Japan Retreat? | 9/12/2007 | See Source »

Japan had been anticipating Abe's resignation since he led the LDP to an historic loss in legislative elections at the end of July, which left the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in control of the Diet's Upper House for the first time in the country's history. His popularity had plummeted from a high of near 70% when he took power last September to below 30% in recent polls, after many his scandal-ridden aides began resigning. "The true nature of the LDP - a dying body on life support - has been exposed," says Japanese political analyst Hirotada...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: After Abe's Exit, Will Japan Retreat? | 9/12/2007 | See Source »

...pass controversial legislation that would renew Japanese naval support for U.S. and coalition forces operating in Afghanistan. The deadline for the Afghanistan bill's passage is Nov. 1, and the opposition DPJ had declared its intention to block the law, setting up a direct face-off with the LDP - one that Abe, who liked to tout himself as a "fighting politician," apparently had no stomach for. Abe's advisers put out the word that the Prime Minister's health had been suffering - though they offered no details - but Abe's surrender just three days into a new Diet sessions seemed...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: After Abe's Exit, Will Japan Retreat? | 9/12/2007 | See Source »

...biggest loser is likely to be the LDP itself, the party that has dominated Japan for nearly the entire postwar era. Though it holds, along with coalition partners, a two-thirds majority in the Diet's Lower House, and new elections aren't scheduled until Sept. 2009, sagging public support means that the next Prime Minister will almost certainly be forced to call early polls. Barring a new leader who can engineer a miracle turnaround - something none of the well-worn LDP candidates seem capable of - the party could well be tossed out of government altogether. "Abe has thrown...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: After Abe's Exit, Will Japan Retreat? | 9/12/2007 | See Source »

More broadly, Abe's resignation spells the end of an attempt among more conservative members of the LDP to loosen the bounds of postwar pacifism and forge a true military alliance with the U.S. That change gathered momentum under Abe's popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who committed Japanese forces to assisting the U.S. in anti-terror operations - including in Iraq - and made noises about revising Japan's constitutional restrictions on military activity. (Japanese troops are allowed to act only in self-defense.) When he came to power, Abe made constitutional revision one of his top priorities, and kept...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: After Abe's Exit, Will Japan Retreat? | 9/12/2007 | See Source »

Previous | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | Next