Word: tanaka
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...leader like Koizumi to get anything done. Although he cruised into office 10 months ago as the crusading anti-establishmentarian who would truly reform Japan, the dashing, outspoken Prime Minister with the finely tuned coif is in trouble. When he fired popular Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka last month under pressure from anti-reform conservatives, his approval rating plunged 20% from last year's high of 80%. As confidence in his leadership sagged, the Nikkei stock average hit an 18-year low. "If he wouldn't support her, it's unlikely he'll make any other bold moves," concludes Masatoshi Sato...
...domestic economic policy front, he faces a bureaucracy as stubborn as that which opposed Tanaka. The aggressive head of the inspection division of the Financial Services Agency, Hirofumi Gomi, has been tenaciously reviewing the loan portfolios of Japan's leading banks and the balance sheets of debtor companies. The verdict: more bad debt than was previously estimated. But plans to take the results of Gomi's audits and crack down on corporate slackers is being stymied by higher-ups within his own agency. "Koizumi needs to make a decision and fire some people," says an analyst who has advised...
...take on the nexus of vested interests and intransigent politicians who had derailed reform throughout the '90s, it was he. But he almost immediately went off track, agreeing to supplementary budgets, endorsing costly bailouts and waffling on banking reform. Then, last month, he dumped his Foreign Minister, Makiko Tanaka, whose bellicose banter and tough stand against prickly bureaucrats made her a popular icon among Japanese housewives. (Her cakes sold even better than Koizumi's.) Within a week, his adoring fans turned on him, and his approval ratings plummeted...
...Even worse than losing that okusan (housewife) support is the perception that Koizumi caved in to the very forces he was elected to oppose. Liberal Democratic Party (ldp) bosses and bureaucrats had been scheming for months to get rid of Tanaka; Koizumi's backpedaling makes him look like a wimp - and a carbon copy of all the losers who preceded him in office. Even more dispiriting is his most recent choice of confidant, none other than his hapless predecessor, the most unpopular Prime Minister Japan has ever had, Yoshiro Mori. "This is the beginning of the betrayal to the nation...
...stock market plunged after Tanaka's firing, not so much because investors care about her, but because they doubted Koizumi's resolve. "They were both seen as destroyers of vested interests, but now if he won't support her, it's unlikely he'll make any other bold moves," says Masatoshi Sato, a senior strategist at Mizuho Investors Securities in Tokyo...