Ruling party picks Fukuda to lead Japan
JAPAN: Japan’s ruling party on Sunday picked Yasuo Fukuda, who
seeks warmer ties with Asian neighbours, to succeed Shinzo Abe as prime
minister in an effort to revive party fortunes and fill a political
vacuum.
The Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) main factions rallied behind
Fukuda after Abe’s resignation in hopes the 71-year-old lawmaker, seen
as a competent moderate, can bring stability after a year marked by
scandals and an election rout.
The bespectacled Fukuda, looking solemn, bowed to applause from LDP
lawmakers and officials after the result of the vote was announced at
the party’s Tokyo headquarters.
Fukuda won 330 of the 527 valid votes cast against 197 for rival Taro
Aso, a hawkish former foreign minister. There was one invalid vote.
He will be chosen prime minister on Tuesday by virtue of the ruling
camp’s huge majority in parliament’s lower house, but he will face a
boisterous opposition that won control of parliament’s upper chamber in
an election in July.
“The LDP is facing an extremely difficult situation and I want to
work first to revive the party and win back people’s trust,” Fukuda said
after the vote, referring to the upper house election loss.
Fukuda also faces conflicting pressures to spend more to woo
disaffected voters while reining in Japan’s mammoth public debt.
The split in parliament has raised fears of a policy deadlock at a
time when Japan needs action on pensions and tax reform as a wave of
retiring baby boomers add to welfare spending.
Critics of Fukuda, chief cabinet secretary under Abe’s popular
predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, say he will be beholden to the LDP’s old
guard, backpedal on vital economic reforms, and lack boldness on the
diplomatic front.
“I think Aso is a politician who would lead the country in a sound
direction,” said one man in his 40s attending a rally for Aso near LDP
headquarters ahead of the vote on Sunday.
“Fukuda isn’t. Aso would pursue the assertive diplomacy he
implemented as foreign minister.”
Fans say his milder style will be welcome after Koizumi’s five years
of combative reforms and 12 months of scandals and upsets under Abe.
Fukuda has pledged, as did Aso, to pay more heed to rural regions and
other sectors hurt by reforms begun under Koizumi.
But he has also acknowledged the limits on government spending given
a public debt already equivalent to one-and-a-half times Japan’s gross
domestic product.
Abe, who turned 53 on Friday, stunned allies and foes alike by
announcing his decision to resign just days after staking his career on
extending a Japanese naval mission in support of U.S.-led military
operations in Afghanistan.
His agenda to create a “Beautiful Country” by reviving traditional
values and boosting Tokyo’s global security role, will likely take a
backseat to pocket-book issues of greater concern to voters under
Fukuda.
However, one of the new leader’s first battles will be over the naval
mission, legislation for which expires on Nov. 1.Close-ally Washington
is pressing Tokyo to continue refuelling coalition ships in the Indian
Ocean, but Japan’s opposition parties, which can delay laws with their
upper house majority, want to end the mission.
Tokyo, Sunday, Reuters |