JAPAN:The contest to become the new prime minister of Japan is hotting up, writes David McNeillin Tokyo.
JAPAN'S RULING Liberal Democrats (LDP) begin the search this week for a new president to guide them through the party's worst crisis in half a century.
The winner will replace departing prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, who abruptly announced his resignation last week, throwing his coalition government and the country into a fresh round of political turmoil. Fukuda (76) is the third premier to step down in two years, reinstating a tradition of revolving-door prime ministers in the world's second-largest economy.
His predecessor, Shinzo Abe, also suddenly quit just 12 months ago, citing health reasons.
Among the long-shot candidates is ex-defence minister Yuriko Koike (56), a former TV announcer and the first woman to run for president of the conservative party, which has been in power for all but a brief period since 1955.
Koike is far behind front-runner Taro Aso (67), ex-foreign minister and currently LDP secretary general.
Aso is thought to have already won the support of about half the party's 47 mostly rural local chapters, but his abrasive style and old-fashioned pork-barrel policies have made him less popular with younger LDP members.
His challengers for the September 22nd election include Shigeru Ishiba (51), another former defence chief, economics minister Kaoru Yosano (70) and former LDP policy chief Nobuteru Ishihara (51).
The new president will become prime minister thanks to the LDP's domination of parliament's more powerful lower house.
With Japan's economy once again heading south, the contest is shaping up as a battle between the party's old guard, led by Aso, who favour the time-tested approach of more public spending to boost growth, and US-influenced reformers, who want spending cuts and fiscal reconstruction.
Aso, who is making his fourth bid for party president, set out his stall at the weekend in a speech criticising his opponents, saying, "They are talking about fiscal discipline. But on all counts, now is the time for economic stimulus measures."
He has floated doubling Japan's consumer tax to 10 per cent to pay for pensions and abandoning a key pledge of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi to cap government bond issues at 30 trillion yen a year.
With Japan's public debt running at over 170 per cent of GDP - the worst in the developed world - such a move would be unpopular abroad and would signal a return to the pump-and-spend policies of the pre-Koizumi years.
Koike leads a group of pro-Koizumi reformers calling for his structural reforms to continue, despite the threat of recession. "What I will aim for is to change this world, the system of Japanese society," she said yesterday after she announced her candidacy.
According to the Nikkei business newspaper, Japan's economy contracted by about 4 per cent in the three months through June - a far steeper rate than forecast.
The election comes at a crucial time for the LDP, which lost its majority of the upper house to the opposition Democrats (DPJ) last year, leading to 12 months of political gridlock amid mounting economic problems.
Led by wily president Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ believes it has the best chance in a generation of toppling the ruling coalition.
Mounting press criticism has added to the government's woes, with many media commentators unhappy with the lack of a popular vote to decide the next prime minister.
Fukuda and Abe both inherited their majority from a 2005 election fought by then prime minister Koizumi.
"I believe the public's anger and distrust against politics is as strong as the force of nature," LDP lawmaker Yoshihiro Seki said after Fukuda's announcement. "If we cannot create a new LDP, the party will be destroyed."
