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Maverick reformist to helm Japan
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LONG graying hair in mop style, often smiling with attention, the fiery-eyed reformist Junichiro Koizumi is to become Japan's next national leader to succeed Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
The 59-year-old reformist Koizumi, who was elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party on Tuesday, is assured Japan's top government post as LDP dominates the three-way ruling coalition of LDP, New Komeito and New Conservative Party.
Koizumi, who snatched 298 out of the total 484 efficient votes in Tuesday's LDP presidential race, will become the first LDP leader who won the party presidency without backing of its largest faction in decades.
Described by Japanese newspapers as unpredictable and the most idiosyncratic politician in Japan, Koizumi exhibits a form of bravado that has made him popular with the public.
Sporting a hairstyle that has been likened to Beethoven's, Koizumi vowed to live up to his reputation as an unorthodox thinker and reformer. His motto is: “Without determination, nothing can be done."
Koizumi, who lost two LDP presidency elections to Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1995 and to Keizo Obuchi in 1998, respectively, pledged to overhaul Japanese politics and the economy.
He promised to force an overhaul of the banking system and corporate sector to rid the Japanese economy once and for all of the bad debts that have brought its financial system to the brink of collapse and stifled economic vitality.
Koizumi also vowed to break free from the past faction-tied appointments of ministers, saying that he is to appoint “appropriate people regardless of recommendations made by factions".
Koizumi comes to power at a moment of considerable challenge for Japan, which is struggling to overcome a decade-long economic crisis, record unemployment and a financial system heavily burdened by bad debt.
But it is views on the role of the military in Japan and his attitude to the country's past that may cause greater waves internationally.
At his first news conference since being elected LDP leader, Koizumi said he would visit Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of World War II.
Yasukuni enshrines some 2.4 million Japanese who have died in wars since the late 19th century, including wartime prime minister General Hideki Tojo and other “class-A" war criminals hanged by the Allies.
Koizumi also signalled his intention to revise the pacifist Constitution to recognize the status of the nation's Self-Defence Forces as a fully-fledged military.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said China hoped Koizumi would take concrete actions to show his sincerity and attitude towards Japan's history of aggression against some Asian countries including China.
Koizumi was born in 1942 to a family of politicians in Kanagawa Prefecture. His grandfather Matajiro Koizumi served as minister of posts and telecommunications and his father Junya Koizumi was director general of the defence agency.
After graduating in economics from Tokyo's elite Keio University in 1967, he went on to study economics at London University.
His father's death in 1969 forced him to quit the university prematurely. He started his political career as secretary to former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda.
In 1972, he won a seat in the lower house at the age of 30. He was made vice- minister for finance in 1979, before joining the cabinet as health and welfare minister in 1988.
Koizumi was made posts and telecommunications minister in the Cabinet of Kiichi Miyazawa, now finance minister, in 1992, and served as health minister again from 1996 to 1997, under Ryutaro Hashimoto, whom he defeated for the LDP presidency on Tuesday.
His two earlier attempts to win the LDP presidency in 1995 and 1998 ended in defeat.
Divorced in 1982, Koizumi took custody of his two sons, now aged 23 and 20.
“He raised his two sons. It was 'Kramer vs Kramer',” an official working for Koizumi said, referring to the Oscar-winning 1979 film starring Dustin Hoffman about a single father's struggle to balance career and child-rearing.
His hobbies include skiing, reading historical novels, watching documentary films and going to Kabuki, a traditional Japanese drama with highly stylized song and dance, performed exclusively by male actors.
Koizumi also admires Winston Churchill, loves karaoke and listens to heavy metal music.(SD-Agencies)
The insider pushing for change
HE'S the insider's insider, calling for change. He favours both belt-tightening and pump-priming to fix Japan's broken economy. He's the massively popular protege of the country's most disliked prime minister in decades.
And Junichiro Koizumi finally prevailed over the LDP's cautious kingmakers on Tuesday, shaking up Japanese politics like nobody's business.
Contradictions and all, the longtime politician has rallied the LDP's 2.3 million rank-and-file members with a straightforward battle cry: He says he's different.
That's apparently enough for party faithful exasperated by the failure of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and his predecessors to lift Japan's economy out of its deepest slump in decades.
“He's part of the LDP, but he doesn't seem very LDP-ish,'' said Masayuki Fukuoka, a political scientist at Hakuo University. “So the thinking is, 'Let's give him a chance and see if he can change something.'"
Koizumi's political roots are in the mainstream. Like many Japanese politicians, it's a family business.
But if his career path was decidedly orthodox, Koizumi made a name for himself pushing views that are anything but.
Most famously, he wants to privatize the postal service, which not only delivers the mail but is also the country's biggest savings bank.
It's one of the party's sacred cows, with postmasters a heavyweight LDP support group. But Koizumi says that the private sector should be able to tap into that capital and compete for those services.
More recently, Koizumi began urging an end to the factions that dominate LDP politics. He also wants to dismantle regulatory barriers blamed for impeding competition, and control the mounting national debt with a ceiling on new issues of government bonds.
“Some of his actions are eccentric, but he's definitely bold," political analyst Takayoshi Miyagawa said. “That's what people like."
They also like his style: He's comfortable in front of the camera, a passionate public speaker, and — by the standards of Japanese politicians — a fashion leader with his longish, wavy, graying mane.
But editorial writers quickly noted that he left his own faction, led by Mori, only after receiving its endorsement for Tuesday'selection for party president.
And for all his exhortations about belt tightening and deregulation, he concedes that the only way to keep the economy from backsliding even further is to continue pumping money into public spending projects.
“On the one hand he's a Young Turk," said Ron Morse, a Japan-based political commentator. “On the other hand, he's an insider who's playing power politics."(SD-Agencies)
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