Word: ldp
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...fitting that the first official day of campaigning for the presidency of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - and at least temporarily, the prime ministership - should come Sept. 17, on keiro no hi, or "Respect for the Aged Day." Japan's political old guard, shunted aside under just-resigned Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is back with a vengeance, and the consensus pick to be the next leader of Japan is a 71-year-old veteran who was rejected last year in part because he was considered too elderly. Yasuo Fukuda, an LDP Diet member who'd disappeared into...
...immediate aftermath of Abe's sudden resignation on Sept. 12, it was Aso - the conservative, high profile ex-Foreign Minister - who had the inside track. A comic book-loving populist - his most recent book was titled Awesome Japan - Aso had finished second to Abe in last year's LDP presidential election, and generally scored well with the public. But like a radioactive bomb, Abe's departure was so disastrous that it contaminated anyone near him, particularly Aso, who reportedly knew of the Prime Minister's coming resignation days before it was announced...
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...
...political deathwatch on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began minutes after his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a historic defeat in elections at the end of July, leaving the opposition in charge of the legislature's upper house for the first time in Japan's postwar history. Abe resisted immediate calls for his resignation and seemed ready to battle for his job in the face of public antipathy. But on Sept. 12 the "fighting politician," as Abe liked to call himself, suddenly lost his stomach for the fight and submitted his resignation to a shocked Japan. "The people need...
...LDP will choose a new leader--and the next Prime Minister--on Sept. 19, and the odds-on favorite is former Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who emerged as Abe's most influential Cabinet member. That decision could be followed by early legislative elections, and unless the LDP can quickly turn its fortunes around, it could find itself out of power for only the second time in its 52-year history. "The true nature of the LDP--a dying body on life support--has been exposed by Abe's resignation," says political analyst Hirotada Asakawa...