New Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda has selected a relatively unknown politician as finance minister, signalling the fiscally conservative leader intends to call the shots on key economic policies himself.
Mr Noda, a former finance minister elected this week as Japan's sixth prime minister in five years, appointed 49-year-old Jun Azumi, a former parliamentary affairs chief, as minister with responsibility for the finance portfolio after his first choice turned it down.
Mr Noda, an unassuming conservative who has compared himself to the "dojo" loach, a bottom-feeding fish, faces a long list of challenges as the third premier since his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took power in 2009.
Among them: dragging the world's third-largest economy out of stagnation, forging a new energy policy while ending a radiation crisis at a crippled nuclear plant, rebuilding the tsunami-devastated northeast and finding funds to pay for that and the vast costs of social welfare in an ageing society.
He must also navigate a divided parliament where the opposition controls the upper house and can block bills, while trying to smooth over rifts within the DPJ, which has never delivered on promises to change how the country is governed.
"As with the 'loach', we will sweat, get covered with mud but get the work done and push politics forward," new chief cabinet secretary Osamu Fujimura told a news conference after announcing the cabinet line-up.
Mr Azumi, who hails from the tsunami-hit town of Ishinomaki in northeast Japan, led the Democrats' campaign in an upper house election in 2010 that they lost badly, handing opposition parties a majority.
The former NHK public TV announcer served previously as vice defence minister but little is known about his views on fiscal policy.
His first task will be to oversee drafting of a third extra budget to fund reconstruction from the March disasters, the biggest rebuilding project since right after the second World War.
The finance portfolio is probably the toughest cabinet job as the minister has to try to contain ballooning debt while seeking to stimulate growth. The turnover at the helm of the ministry has exceeded even that in the top government post and the new minister will be Japan's ninth since 2006.
Some analysts questioned whether Mr Azumi was up to the task. "He's too lightweight," said Katsuhiko Nakamura, executive director at the Asian Forum Japan think tank.
Mr Noda settled on Mr Azumi after his first choice, former DPJ secretary general Katsuya Okada, declined.
There were no standout appointments in the new cabinet, which - like Mr Noda's earlier picks for party posts - included a mix of lawmakers from various groups in the party, divided by policy gaps and personal feuds.
That led some to critics to wonder whether Mr Noda was putting too much stress on party unity over expertise.
Reuters
