What Will Next Prime Minister Do?

Yasuo Fukuda will be the next prime minister in Japan. I was supporting Mr. Aso, who had similar political view with Mr. Abe, but he failed the race.

Mr. Fukuda, the NY Times says, "often comes across as dour in public"(By NORIMITSU ONISHI, Published: September 23, 2007). His comments are often unclear to understand, which isn't a good thing as a responsible lawmaker who talks to the public.

I don't know well what he wants to do as a Prime Minister. And many people in Japan won't support him. As the NY Times tells, Mr. Fukuda will serve as a caretaker leader until the party can regroup. He will do with the political issues in a very Japanesque way: He will play a role to be a very balanced caretaker in his party and to adjust the differences of views in his LDP.

Certainly it is sometimes very important and necessary for a lawmaker to adjust the differences of views in his or her party like adding up and dividing them by two. However, sometimes this means that doing nothing is the best policy to make. This may be not different from the politics in the US where I am living now. This is, I think, the old-fashioned conservative political way with which many Japanese are disgusted. And I am afraid either that Mr. Fukuda is such a role model and is going back to the old LDP (how do I say..., so to speak, the LDP as a pork-sprinkler.) or that he slams the brakes on reform.''

My ideal for a lawmaker is that he or she would show us what he or she is going to do for Japan, and would make a strong commitment to do so as a new leader.

Did you do so before? You were reluctant to become a leader of Japan, weren't you? What country have you been thought is desirable? Or what country have you wanted to build? What is your political agenda? What are you thinking the most important to solve the political problems lying ahead of us? Please let us know first, our new Prime Minister, Fukuda!!

In this point, Mr. Abe was much more sincere; He wrote his original book on his political views and he talked to us about what he was going to do as a youngest leader. He tried very well to save a dozen abductees from North Korea. Mr. Fukuda should succeed to Mr. Abe's effort to save the Japanese abductees.

Anyway I want to watch what he is going to do from now on.

Here's the excerpts that estimate his political way:

TOKYO (Reuters) -
"Safety, security and stability -- these are the things that many in the LDP are hoping for from Fukuda," said Takehiko Yamamoto, political science professor at Waseda University.

Financial markets had already factored in a Fukuda victory, but critics worry he'll be beholden to the LDP's old guard, slow down economic reforms, and be timid on foreign policy.

"Fukuda was chosen by party factions and I worry that things will go back to the old Japan," said an Aso supporter, 37-year-old Katsuya Nishima, who works in the financial sector.

Fukuda has pledged to pay more heed to depressed rural regions but has acknowledged there are limits to spending, given public debt is already about one-and-a-half times Japan's gross domestic product.

.....His political genda to create a "Beautiful Country" by reviving traditional values and boosting Tokyo's global security role, will likely take a back seat to pocket-book issues now. Fukuda has also sounded a softer note toward talks on normalizing ties with North Korea, long stalled by an emotive feud over Japanese citizens kidnapped decades ago.


By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: September 23, 2007
NY Times

Mr. Fukuda — sometimes described as a foreign policy “dove” who has long emphasized the importance of building strong ties with China and the rest of Asia — represents a break from the nationalist Mr. Abe and his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. At home, experts say, Mr. Fukuda will be pressured to slow down the political and economic changes undertaken by Mr. Koizumi so that his party can try to shore up its traditional rural voting base.

.....“The factions have staged a comeback — it’s old-style politics again,” said Ikuo Kabashima, a professor of politics at the University of Tokyo. “Mr. Fukuda, above all, symbolizes that. He is the exact opposite of Mr. Koizumi. We’ll probably see more public works from now on, plenty of pork.”

....“The faction leaders made their selection on the basis of who’s easy to control,” said Muneo Suzuki, a former Liberal Democratic lawmaker who now heads a small opposition party. “As a result, if the question is whether Mr. Fukuda can take the initiative and govern, he can’t.”

Mr. Fukuda said he would pursue the economic and political program that was started under Mr. Koizumi, but lagged under Mr. Abe. A further backpedaling would jeopardize the changes that experts say are needed to bolster Japan’s productivity and reduce its fiscal deficit. But many inside Mr. Fukuda’s party want to increase spending to recapture their traditional rural voters, who deserted them in July’s election.

.....But Mr. Fukuda lacks the charisma and personal popularity that empowered Mr. Koizumi to carry out policies often opposed by his own party. He is also a generation older than Mr. Abe, whose initial popularity rested partly on the fact that he was Japan’s first leader born after the end of World War II.

The photo is from NY Times.