Aso takes charge of Japan
JAPAN: Taro Aso took charge as Japan's new prime minister Wednesday,
lining up his cabinet with like-minded conservatives to help his mission
to revive the economy and win upcoming elections.
The divided parliament voted along party lines to install the
flamboyant former foreign minister, who was expected to fly a day later
to New York for the UN General Assembly.
Aso bowed four times and shook hands with fellow lawmakers after the
more powerful lower house approved him.
"When I look at the financial situation and other things, I feel like
we're in a turbulent period - not in peacetime," Aso told reporters
before the vote, referring to the crisis over bad debts hitting global
markets.
"Frankly speaking, I am once again feeling the gravity of my
responsibilities."
Aso replaced Yasuo Fukuda, a mild centrist whose ratings dived after
he raised medical costs for the elderly.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) picked Aso on Monday as its
new leader by an overwhelming majority, placing its trust in a
crowd-pleasing though gaffe-prone campaigner.
Analysts expect him to call a general election as early as late
October in a bid to hold off gains by the rising opposition, which has
pounded away at the LDP's traditional strongholds in the countryside.
"The final battle has begun. The autumn of elections the autumn to
change the government is coming," said opposition chief Ichiro Ozawa,
whose bloc controls one house of parliament.
The LDP has been in power for all but 10 months since 1955, but Aso
will be its fourth prime minister in the past two years as the party
struggles over a raft of scandals and, more recently, a faltering
economy.
Aso said his first priority would be to pump stimulative spending
into the economy, the world's second largest but teetering on the brink
of recession, clashing with LDP free-market reformists who in recent
years have pushed to tame a ballooning public debt.
Newspapers said Aso would tap as his finance minister Shoichi
Nakagawa who, echoing the incoming premier, said he would make "full use
of all sorts of policies" to invigorate the economy.
"Some people label us as freespenders or old-guard cronies as we say
we are not hesitant on fiscal spending," Nakagawa, a former industry
minister, wrote in a newspaper column. "But we do not intend to
backtrack on reforms."
Nakagawa - who was shunned by the more dovish Fukuda - has raised
controversy through strong criticism of China and calls for Japan, the
only nation to have suffered atomic attack, to study developing nuclear
weapons.
"This is the lineup aimed at avoiding any political scandals ahead of
the imminent general elections," said Shujiro Kato, professor of
politics at Toyo University.
"Nobody reported to be appointed as minister is a fresh face."
Newspapers said the foreign minister would be Fumihiro Nakasone, the
son of one of Japan's best-known premiers, Yasuhiro Nakasone, who led
Japan in the 1980s and was a close ally in US president Ronald Reagan's
anti-communist campaign.
Tokyo, Wednesday, AFP
|