Aso steps up

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Sep 22nd 2008 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

Taro Aso is poised to take over as prime minister in Japan

AFP
NOW that he has handily won the nomination to lead the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Taro Aso, a 68-year-old former foreign minister, will on Wednesday September 24th become Japan’s third (unelected) prime minister in two years. Mr Aso, the grandson of another prime minister, Shigeru Yoshida, a chief architect of post-war Japan, is reasonably popular for his straight-talking style and upbeat countenance, in contrast to his morose predecessor, Yasuo Fukuda. He seems to have reassured colleagues that his hawkish views will not jeopardise recent improvements in Japan’s ties with China and South Korea.

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He will act swiftly to pull together a party in disarray after Mr Fukuda’s abrupt resignation, and facing obstruction from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which controls the upper house of Japan’s Diet (parliament). Mr Aso’s own standing in the country, as well as the possibility that he will bring some of his beaten opponents into his new cabinet, will almost certainly produce a bounce in popularity for a government unloved by the public.

The question is what such momentum will achieve. Two legislative challenges face Mr Aso. The ruling coalition says that the global financial crisis makes it more pressing than ever to pass a stimulus package worth ¥11.5 trillion ($106 billion, though only a fifth of it amounts to new spending). A second task is to renew the navy’s refuelling operation in the Indian Ocean, part of the international effort in Afghanistan. Continuing this operation, which expires in January, has come to be seen as main symbol of Japan’s willingness to play a bigger part in the world.

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The opposition DPJ vows to oppose both measures. It says that the fiscal package benefits the LDP’s traditional interests while not helping the old and the poor. And it—or rather its leader, Ichiro Ozawa, who has strong views on the matter—claims that the Indian Ocean mission breaches the pacifist constitution; Mr Ozawa wants UN backing before Japan’s armed services are sent overseas.

Even though Mr Aso is not bound to call a general election until next September, the opposition’s obstruction raises the odds of a snap poll, which the ruling coalition’s junior party, New Komeito, also favours. Much is at stake for the LDP, which for half a century has been in near-continuous power. To set against Mr Aso’s relative popularity is a whole list of grievances directed at a party (and its allies in the bureaucracy) that is seen as incompetent and out of touch. On top of the welfare ministry’s gross mismanagement of the country’s pensions system comes a growing scandal over tainted rice that on September 19th forced the resignation of the agriculture minister.

Mr Ozawa is now urging his forces to bring about an upheaval in Japanese politics: he speaks of the coming election as “the last battle”. There is little that is noble in his approach, which aims to bring together the disaffected from every quarter. Though supposedly a party of reform, the DPJ has attempted to forge an alliance with a reactionary group, the New People’s Party, whose members broke with the LDP because they opposed the privatisation of the postal system. Socialists and Communists also form part of the DPJ’ s ragbag alliance.

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Mr Ozawa promises to restore the pension system, help the working poor and the old, and revitalise the countryside. The DPJ’s proposals for paying for this are not credible, but while the opposition is on the attack, that hardly matters. In a policy address on Sunday Mr Ozawa aimed squarely at a rotten target: the murky national budget. In it, special accounts for infrastructure and other spending sit unscrutinised, serving powerful ministries and semi-public corporations. Over the coming weeks Mr Ozawa will travel the country trying to convince voters that the LDP and its allies in the bureaucracy are congenitally incapable of revamping the way taxpayers’ money is taken in and spent in unaccountable ways. Many voters will sit up and listen. Others will think that to return the LDP to the lower house would be to continue the mess of a hung Diet. Mr Ozawa’s hopes for an upheaval look entirely plausible.