Search Begins for New Japanese PM, Jason Strother, Voice of America, 2 September 2008
Timothy Savage, deputy director of the Nautilus Institute, a regional policy research group, in Seoul, says the LDP is struggling to find a leader who can stay in office. “What you have going on is the LDP is trying to hold on to its long standing monopoly of power by shuffling in one unpopular prime minister and replacing him with another unpopular prime minister.”
With the opposition party in charge of the upper house of Parliament, Savage says the LDP will most likely have to call a general election in the next few months. Should Aso become prime minister, Savage says Japan’s relations with its neighbors will be rattled.
“Aso is defiantly aligned with the more nationalist right in Japan. I think actually the biggest problem could be is with North Korea, where there was recently some progress with the abduction issue under Fukuda,” said Savage.