Japan deckchair shuffle: Aso favourite to replace Fukuda.

Ruling party secretary-general Taro Aso is the odds-on favourite to become Japan’s next Prime Minister later this month. He will be the 11th prime minister in the last 15 years. The 67 year old Aso was runner up to incumbent Yasuo Fukuda in last year’s election for premier and remains a popular and congenial figure. It is possible he will now be the only candidate to replace Fukuda who resigned on Monday. The chair of the ruling LDP's general affairs committee, Takashi Sasagawa said the party would meet on Wednesday to formally set a date for the internal leadership vote. Japanese media expect the vote to occur on September 20 or 22. Aso announced his intension to run yesterday. "I think [Fukuda] felt he had work that was left undone, and he said he wanted it to be carried out," he said. "As someone who discussed these issues with him…I think I have the credentials to take that on”.

Aso is a former foreign minister and a hawkish and straight-talking right-winger. His power is based in the party’s grassroots and he is no friend of Fukuda. In a cabinet shuffle last month Yoshiro Mori, one of the LDP’s power brokers (and a former unsuccessful PM himself), foisted Aso onto a reluctant Fukuda as the party’s new secretary-general. According to The Economist, Aso has done nothing since his appointment but work behind the scenes to undermine Fukuda.

Though his resignation was not unexpected, there was no obvious trigger for its announcement. Fukuda,72, called it a day on Monday saying he had decided several days earlier to step down to avoid creating a "political vacuum". At his farewell media conference, Fukuda said a cabinet reshuffle and the recent announcement of $107 billion in spending and tax cuts had not lifted his deeply unpopular administration in the polls. Fukuda was deeply unpopular and has been hampered by a hostile Upper House where the opposition Democrats blocked government bills and appointments, including Fukuda's candidate to be governor of the Bank of Japan.

The moderate conservative only took office last September after his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, quit in similar circumstances and after a similar time period in the job. Malcolm Cook at The Interpreter believes Aso has a better chance of staying longer in the job than either Abe or Fukuda. Unlike the two previous leaders Aso is popular and charismatic and can provide a message of hope and renewal. In that respects he most resembles the country’s last successful leader Junichiro Koizumi. Cook calls Aso a “Koizumi plus” candidate who will take a very strong line on strengthening the US alliance and on viewing China as a strategic competitor and a threat to Japan.

But for now the biggest threat to Japan remains Japanese politics. Fukuda struggled to cope with a divided parliament where opposition parties have the power to delay legislation. He tried and failed several times to compromise with Democrats' leader, Ichiro Ozawa (who quit the LDP in the 1990s). Important legislation could be rammed through the Diet thanks only to the two-third’s “supermajority” enjoyed by the ruling coalition in the lower house. But most notable was the failure to pass a bill to renew the Japanese navy’s refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean, an embarrassing set-back to the country’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Fukuda’s sudden exit now raises questions about the LDP’s ability to cling to power or even avoid splitting up after ruling Japan for most of the past 53 years. The LDP does not have to call an election until next year but the Democrats are now pushing for an early vote. The party’s secretary-general Yukio Hatoyama said Fukuda’s sudden department showed that LDP didn’t have the ability to hold the reins of government. “I am deeply resentful towards Fukuda for not caring about people,” he said. “All we want is the calling of early elections.”

Fukuda takes the reins in Japan

New Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has promised a more conciliatory approach to politics than his predecessor after his first week in the job. Fukuda has committed to keeping dialogue open with the media with twice daily interviews, town meetings and an email magazine. He also wants to engage in dialogue with the opposition Democratic Party of Japan to solve the current political impasse. His predecessor Shinzo Abe had antagonised the press and resigned over his failure to win support for an extension of a controversial anti-terrorism law.

The 71 year old Fukuda is a political survivor. He is the country’s longest serving chief cabinet secretary (between 2000 and 2004) and follows in the footsteps of his late father Takeo Fukuda who was Prime Minister between 1976 and 1978. Fukuda (the son) initially worked in private industry but moved into backroom politics during his father’s reign as premier. He was elected into parliament in 1990. He slowly worked his way up to Chief Cabinet Secretary until he was brought down in a purge after a major political scandal about the Japanese pension system.

Fukuda was approached to run for leadership last year after Junichiro Koizumi stepped down but he decided to leave the field clear for Shinzo Abe to take the leadership. Fukuda has now promised to use his negotiating skills to win approval for extending Tokyo's contentious mission in support of US troops in Afghanistan. Currently Japanese naval vessels refuel coalition ships in the Indian Ocean. The mission has been going since 2001, and Washington has called publicly for Tokyo to renew its commitment. The US joined a delegation of 11 nations that has called on Japan to “continue its important contribution” in Afghanistan.

Many in Japan think the ruling government’s support for the refuelling goes against the intent of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, the so-called ‘anti belligerence’ clause. The first sentence of the article reads in part “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes”. The clause was included in the American-written Japanese constitution in 1947 and has never been modified. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was closely associated with a push to renew the Afghan mandate but was opposed by the Democratic Party of Japan.

He resigned suddenly on 12 September. Officially Abe said he resigned to expedite the end to a political stalemate caused by Afghan crisis and the defeat of the ruling coalition in the July Upper House elections. But many observers questioned how exactly Abe’s resignation will resolve the issue. This has led to speculation as to other possibilities to why he stood aside. Some aides have hinted of a health problem and Chief Cabinet Secretary Kaoru Yosano said Abe has been in “constant agony” lately. But there may be a second cause. There is talk in Japanese political circles that an upcoming story in the weekly tabloid Shukan Gendai will expose a ¥300 million inheritance tax evasion by Abe.

If this is true, it is just one more example of financial impropriety in Japan’s upper political echelons. Even new Prime Minister Fukuda is not immune. On Friday he was forced to admit reports that a political support group in his constituency crossed off its name on receipts and instead attributed the receipts to the ruling party's local chapter. Fukuda denied it was deliberate evasion but instead merely “sloppy accounting”. But the news does not bode well for a cleaner financial future. For now Fukuda is acting humble in the hope of riding the storm. "It has nothing to do with making a profit or financial wrongdoing," he said. "But as the head of the office I really feel ashamed."