Word: ldp
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...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...
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...
...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...
...part of the shuffle, Abe's close ally, former foreign minister Taro Aso, now becomes party secretary general; his place is taken by legislator Nobutaka Machimura, the head of the LDP's biggest faction. Civilian appointee Hiroya Masuda, a former prefectural governor and regional reformer, becomes Abe's interior minister in charge of addressing the concerns rural voters left out of Japan's urban-centered economic recovery. Popular LDP member of parliament Yoichi Masuzoe, a vocal critic of Abe's, will become minister of health, labor and welfare. It's an important but uncoveted position: Masuzoe must untangle the mishandling...
...remarked that the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb "couldn't be helped" and an agricultural minister whose suspected involvement in financial scandals led him to commit suicide. In making his goal of amending Japan's pacifist constitution to allow a more robust foreign policy the cornerstone of the LDP's July election campaign, Abe ignored voter concerns over bread-and-butter issues at his peril. To placate the calls for his own resignation after the historic loss that followed, Abe sacked his replacement agricultural minister over yet another financial scandal and promised a cabinet reshuffle, only to have...