JAPAN/FILE: Japan's Abe wins party leadership, set to be next prime minister to succeed Koizumi

Record ID: 463623

  • Title: JAPAN/FILE: Japan's Abe wins party leadership, set to be next prime minister to succeed Koizumi
  • Date: 21st September 2006
  • Summary: (W2) TOKYO, JAPAN (SEPTEMBER 20, 2006) (REUTERS) INTERSECTION IN TOKYO'S GINZA DISTRICT (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) YOSHINORI TOMA, 39, FINANCIAL INFORMATION VENDOR, SAYING: "I just hope Koizumi's reform track will continue. I'm worried Japan might go back to the pre-Koizumi times." (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) RIE YAMAZAKI, AGE UNKNOWN, LIFE INSURANCE AGENT, SAYING: "We now live in a society with widening disparities. I just want Abe to care about the poor." (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) HIDEO KOGA, 71, RETIRED ENGINEER, SAYING: "Abe is just Koizumi's carbon copy. He doesn't have his own opinions." STREET SCENE
  • Embargoed: 6th October 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7133QVE9X7NR3U7OKNDUV185M
  • Story Text: Shinzo Abe, a conservative advocate of a more muscular Japanese foreign policy, was overwhelmingly elected as ruling party leader on Wednesday (September 20), setting the stage for his election as prime minister next week.
    Abe, set to become Japan's first prime minister born after World War Two, has pledged to rewrite Japan's pacifist constitution, forge even tighter security ties with close ally Washington, and put patriotism back in Japanese classrooms.
    He has also promised to seek a thaw in ties with China and South Korea, chilled by outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo war shrine. But he has stressed that better relations require efforts on all sides.
    Abe's widely anticipated victory all but ensures his election as prime minister when parliament convenes for a vote on Sept. 26 because of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's grip on the lower chamber.
    Abe took 464 of the 702 valid votes from LDP lawmakers and party chapters, against 136 for Foreign Minister Taro Aso and 102 for Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, his rivals.
    Lawmakers applauded when Koizumi, wearing a blue suit and red tie, cast his ballot in the contest that brings down the curtain on his more than five years as LDP leader, during which he battled his party's old guard to push reforms.
    Abe, who turns 52 on Thursday, has promised to pursue growth while pushing economic reforms begun by Koizumi, who took power in 2001 vowing to cut his party loose from the grip of vested interests and reduce government's heavy hand on the economy.
    "I will stand together with you all and do the best I can to turn Japan into a 'beautiful' country," Abe told party members after he was elected president at the LDP's headquarters.
    The soft-spoken Abe has long topped the list of politicians Japanese voters prefer to see succeed Koizumi, making him the candidate of choice for a hefty majority of LDP lawmakers looking ahead to elections for parliament's upper house next summer.
    Koizumi appeared to endorse Abe at the beginning of September.
    "All the candidates more or less share my views and policies as we belong to the same party. But since I became the prime minister, Mr. Abe is the one with whom I've been closest," he told media at a press briefing.
    First elected to parliament in 1993, Abe has held only one cabinet post, his current key job as chief cabinet secretary. He followed his father, former Foreign minister Shintaro Abe and grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi into politics.
    He first became a household name four years ago for his tough stance in a feud with North Korea over Japanese citizens kidnapped by the secretive communist state decades ago.
    Now Abe faces the dual challenges of repairing ties with Beijing and Seoul and keeping economic reforms on track while addressing voter worries about the widening social gaps many see resulting from Koizumi's reforms.
    But some critics say Abe lacks the kind of charisma his lion-mane predecessor had.
    "He (Abe) doesn't have Koizumi's kind of charisma. He can't talk in soundbites the way Prime Minister Koizumi did. So Mr. Abe has to find a style of his own so that people stop comparing him to Mr. Koizumi. If he looks as though he was trying to do it the way Koziumi did it, then obviously people will say he is not going to get very well because Koizumi is an impossible actor to follow."
    Abe, a third-generation politician, is thought unlikely to adopt Koizumi's combative approach in forging ahead with economic reforms and so far had not fleshed out details of how he intends to get a handle on Japan's bulging public debt.
    People in Tokyo streets were divided over how far Abe should follow the footsteps of Koizumi.
    "I just hope Koizumi's reform track will continue. I'm worried Japan might go back to the pre-Koizumi times," said Yoshinori Toma, 39, a financial information vendor.
    Yamazaki Rie, a life insurance agent, said she thinks Abe shouldn't necessary follow Koizumi's small government policy,
    "We now live in a society with widening disparities. I just want Abe to care about the poor."
    Others, like HIdeo Koga, a 71-year-old retired engineer, said a key to Abe's success as Japan's new leader hinges on his originality.
    "Abe is just Koizumi's carbon copy. He doesn't have his own opinions."
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