Worldandnation: Japanese ruling party selects friend of Obuchi as new leader

Japanese ruling party selects friend of Obuchi as new leader

Compiled from Times wires

TOKYO -- The imminent selection of Yoshiro Mori, a rugged backroom political brawler, as Japan's 85th prime minister signals that the nation's ruling political machine considers stability -- and its own grip on power -- its most pressing priority.

The beefy former journalist and avid rugby player with neither economic nor foreign policy experience was picked today by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to succeed his college schoolmate Keizo Obuchi as party president, only three days after the prime minister suffered a massive stroke. Both men are 62.

A vote in Parliament to confirm Mori as prime minister, considered a formality because of the LDP's legislative majority, was expected later today. U.S. officials do not expect any immediate changes in economic or trade policy as a result of Mori's elevation. Prospects for any breakthroughs on a number of thorny issues, especially deregulating Japan's domestic telephone market, probably will be on hold until after new elections.

Just a few weeks ago, it appeared that Obuchi would wait until late summer to call an election, hoping to benefit from a display of his statecraft at the mid-July summit on Okinawa of the leaders of the world's seven largest industrial powers, plus Russia, known as the Group of Eight, or G-8. Many party leaders now think a quick election this spring could allow the LDP to take advantage of a wave of sympathy for Obuchi.

The government must face the electorate before Oct. 19, when the current Parliament's tenure expires.

As Obuchi lay in a coma and on a respirator in a Tokyo hospital, his Cabinet resigned en masse late Tuesday, after determining that Obuchi was unable to fulfill his duties. Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki, standing in for the prime minister, said Obuchi was "not brain-dead," but could not understand questions or express himself.

Aoki has come under criticism for failing to disclose the crisis for almost a full day. On Tuesday, he apologized for false reports that Obuchi had gone to bed as usual Saturday night.

"We will be careful in the future," Aoki said.

The Cabinet's resignation paved the way for naming Obuchi's successor, but Mori said he would quickly reappoint them, except for Aoki. He is to be replaced as chief Cabinet secretary by Hiromu Nonaka, one of the party's most influential strategists.

In a brief meeting with reporters late Tuesday, Mori signaled his intention to carry out his predecessor's legacy, saying, "Obuchi's ideas and lines must be inherited and carried out without fail."

Using a samurai term, as is common in Japanese politics, to amplify on that, party leaders said Mori would act to settle old scores in revenge for Obuchi's incapacitation.

Obuchi spent liberally, with mixed results, to get the nation's economy moving again. He shored up the teetering banking system and lent billions of dollars to small- and medium-sized manufacturing and construction firms, the backbone of the LDP's traditional support. By the end of this year, Japan is expected to surpass Italy as the nation with the biggest public debt as a share of its economic output.

Analysts said Mori, once tainted in a stocks-for-favors scandal in the 1980s, was being tapped for the sake of party unity. A leader of his own faction within the conservative LDP, Mori was a close friend and ally of Obuchi's and maintained good relations with the New Komeito party, a key member of the government's ruling coalition.

"He's the consensus successor," said analyst Shigenori Okazaki. "The party power brokers wanted to quickly find a successor to Obuchi behind closed doors. But nobody knows Mori's fiscal creed or ideology."

While a popular choice in Nagatacho, Japan's Capitol Hill, for his flexibility, Mori is little known to the public, analysts said. Political insiders added that Mori has a reputation as selfless, but with few deeply political convictions.

A former reporter for the conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper, Mori was elected to the lower house of Parliament in 1969. A consensus-builder and behind-the-scenes power broker, he rose swiftly through the party's ranks until his reputation was damaged in the 1980s, when he was one of many senior party figures implicated in a scandal involving the publisher Recruit, which gave away shares in exchange for political favors.

Moving slowly to rehabilitate his image, he was later named minister of international trade and construction minister. Eventually Obuchi named him secretary-general, the party's second highest post.

A sympathy vote in this year's election could improve the LDP's chances of keeping its power. The last time a Japanese prime minister was stricken while in office, the ruling LDP won in a landslide. Moreover, the main opposition parties -- the Democrats and Social Democrats -- remain in disarray.