Brash, right-leaning former foreign minister Taro Aso announced yesterday that he would run for ruling party president in a move that would put him on track to take over as Japan’s next prime minister.
Aso, 67, is widely considered the front-runner to replace struggling Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who announced on Monday that he would step down amid sagging popularity and troubles with a split parliament.
Aso, a former Olympic skeet shooter, is focusing his campaign on Japan’s troubled economy, which is suffering from stagnating growth, weak consumer spending and inflation.
PHOTO: EPA
“The recovery of the domestic economy and clearing the unease of the people, these are the things we have to address in the election,” Aso told reporters.
Aso’s candidacy for the Sept. 22 vote in the Liberal Democratic Party was widely expected. He declared just hours after Fukuda’s resignation address that he was “qualified” to lead the nation.
Multiple polls have showed him to be the clear favorite among citizens, who have expressed widespread disappointment at Fukuda’s quick exit.
The ruling party election is expected to be followed on Sept. 24 with a vote in parliament for prime minister. The party’s hold on the powerful lower house all but guarantees that the party president will be elected prime minister.
Three other candidates also moved closer to officially entering the race.
Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano, who wants to rein in government spending and raise taxes to whittle down Japan’s massive national debt, said yesterday that he felt “it was his responsibility” to run to implement his policies.
Yuriko Koike, a former defense minister and TV anchorwoman, said she was getting closer to having the support necessary to enter the race.
“Yesterday, conditions got a lot better, I can see blue skies now,” she said.
And Nobuteru Ishihara, the son of Tokyo’s governor, said he was also working to get support from party members.
Japan’s political and economic uncertainty has already taken a toll on its foreign relations. North Korea has told Tokyo it will put on hold its investigation into the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by its spies in the 1970s and 1980s until a new prime minister is in place and his policies are clear.
Within Japan, the political opposition, which took control of the upper house of parliament in elections last year, has been pushing noisily for early lower house elections, and speculation is high that the new prime minister will be forced to go along.
Citing unidentified sources, Kyodo News agency reported that the new prime minister would dissolve parliament next month and call general elections for November in hopes of breaking the logjam in the legislature.
The Asahi Shimbun said on Thursday that 56 percent of Japanese favored dissolving parliament and holding general elections “as soon as possible,” a telephone poll of 1,069 people said.
None of the ruling party’s candidates was expected to dramatically stray from the economic and diplomatic policies that Fukuda pursued, although Aso’s nationalist stance could affect international relations.
Fukuda went out of his way to improve relations with China and his administration made progress in resolving the kidnapping dispute with North Korea.
Reviving the economy is expected to be a major initial goal, and Fukuda recently announced a stimulus package that has yet to be implemented.
But opposition to ruling party legislation is high, and government business has been deadlocked for more than a year because the leading opposition group is blocking most bills and calling for nationwide elections to test the public mandate.
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