FILE/JAPAN: PROFILE - Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hoping for a second run as the country's leader

Record ID: 466867

  • Title: FILE/JAPAN: PROFILE - Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hoping for a second run as the country's leader
  • Date: 11th December 2012
  • Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (FILE - 2007) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ABE AND HIS WIFE AKIE GETTING OUT OF PLANE
  • Embargoed: 26th December 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan, China
  • City:
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA2A017C7OTHMZLD1ZK5PDY20AY
  • Story Text: Conservative former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its smaller ally are heading for a resounding victory in this weekend's election, predicted to win more than 300 seats in parliament's 480-member lower house, media surveys showed on Tuesday (December 11).
    The 58-year-old who resigned abruptly as premier in 2007 after a troubled year in office, is pushing the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for more powerful monetary stimulus and promises to boost public works to rev up a stagnant economy.
    Abe, the grandson of a wartime cabinet minister who became prime minister after World War Two, also favours a tough stance against China in a territorial row and loosening the limits of Japan's 65-year-old pacifist constitution on the military.
    Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which surged to power in 2009 for the first time, could get fewer than 80 seats at the election, the papers said.
    Many voters have become disillusioned with the ruling Democrats who promised to break the "iron triangle" of cozy ties between big business, bureaucrats and lawmakers, nurtured during the LDP's nearly unbroken half-century rule.
    "I believe the people of Japan demand that I should reclaim the Prime Minister's role, so I will fight with all my effort in this historic election together with you," Abe told party members during his election campaign.
    Abe has also tapped a nationalist sentiment in Japan to win voters and has promised to get tougher with Beijing in a row over a series of islets in the East China Sea known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, and to loosen the pacifist constitution.
    "First of all, I'd like to express my will to protect the Senkaku Islands and our territorial waters," Abe said when announcing the party platform.
    Reviving Asia's second largest economy, which is slipping into its fourth recession since 2000, is also a major election issue and has seen hawkish Abe pressure the Bank of Japan for "unlimited" easing to achieve two percent inflation, double the bank's target.
    Japanese voters are set to head to the polls this Sunday (December 16).
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