Word: ldp
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...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 the LDP's prefectural chapters - with Fukuda winning 330, a landslide...
...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 the right names. "Second- or third-generation politicians tend to learn the techniques of the family business...
...widening income gap, a shifting global balance of power - many politicians seem intent on replaying ancient political battles. And it's not just a Bush here or a Kennedy there: roughly one-third of Japan's sitting parliamentarians come from political nobility. Hereditary leadership doesn't just plague the LDP, which has ruled Japan virtually uninterrupted for half a century, but opposition parties as well. Ichiro Ozawa, the head of the Democratic Party of Japan, is the son of a former Cabinet minister...
...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 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...
...unmatched by any other post World War II minister - Fukuda earned a reputation for calm competency that should appeal to a public and a party still shocked by the utter disintegration of Abe's administration. But it seems far less likely that Fukuda will be able to help the LDP at the ballot box. (Legislative elections aren't scheduled until 2009, but with the opposition empowered by its recent win, early polls seem inevitable.) Clever and even cutting in person, Fukuda was always happy to give candid assessments of his LDP rivals, albeit off the record. However, the Diet veteran...