2011年8月25日木曜日

Pressure cooker politics for Japan's next leader - Xinhua

TOKYO, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Naoto Kan has declared he will leave office after a protracted period of legislative jockeying, setting the stage for the nation to see its sixth prime minister in just five years.

As potential successors ramp up their cajoling of key intraparty groups and senior party officials ahead of DPJ presidential election scheduled next Monday, the inherent rifts in the DPJ have once again come to the surface, leaving many political pundits wondering if the next party leader will have enough support from within his own party to successfully lead the nation through a myriad of pressing political, social and economic obstacles.

STACKED DECK

In many respects, Kan's successor will be playing political blackjack with the deck stacked against him.

The new leader will most certainly have to contend with far more problems than were on Kan's plate when he took over from former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama -- who himself resigned over broken campaign promises just nine months after the Democrats won national elections, defeating the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and ending more than 50 years of almost unbroken control of government.

"Prime Minister Kan is on his way out of Japan's revolving door for leaders and this is of no great surprise in the grand scheme of things, as when public support rate plunges, it's only ever a matter of time in Japan and Kan's have dropped to a record low of 15 percent," Laurent Sinclair, an independent research analyst for pacific affairs, told Xinhua.

"Whoever's next, in what is viewed by the international political community as an increasingly whimsical directorate, will have to contend with a soaring yen, crafting and implementing a multi-phased post-nuclear crisis energy policy, as well as ensuring reconstruction efforts are continually prioritized," he said.

Even if the next leader hits the ground running, Sinclair said that Kan's inability to hold a fractious party together and garner support from opposition parties, coupled with a perceived lack of leadership following the March twin disasters -- punctuated by his conspicuous absence in the days and weeks after March 11 as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano seemingly became the nation's interim chief -- points to deeper, fundamental flaws in Japanese politics.

He added that the nation's new leader, while tackling the fallout from Kan's era, must still also comprehensively address the burgeoning issue of Japan's mounting public debt and ever- increasing costs of a graying society.

Indeed, Moody's Investors Services Inc. on Wednesday cut Japan' s credit rating by one notch citing concerns about the government' s ability to reduce its mountain of debt and implement long-term fiscal sustainability measures.

Notably, the ratings agency also highlighted the frequency of Japan's political leadership switches as a key factor "obstructing the implementation of necessary fiscal measures to bring down its debt."

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported that Japan's gross debt will be equivalent to 233 percent of the size of the economy this year and is set to increase in the coming years by the government's expectations for annual budget deficits of at least 7 percent through 2015, which far exceeds nominal growth rate.

With plenty of hurdles to contend with, the nation is hoping a bold, forthright leader will fill Kan's mercurial shoes, but nobody is holding their breath as both the public and politicians are under no illusions that the biggest obstacle for any could-be consummate leader, lies deep within the ruling DPJ itself.


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