New PM of Japan Promised
Mr. Shinzo Abe was today elected as new president of the LDP, the major opposition party in Japan.
The conservative LDP had kept power for almost 50 years, except a year or so since 1955, till it lost the 2009 general election to the DPJ that includes many leftist members.
But, Mr. Abe was once prime minister of Japan after Mr. Junichiro Koizumi who had consolidated a diplomatic tie with the Bush Administration. From 2006 to 2007, LDP lawmaker Abe led Japan as prime minister, taking a nationalistic stance in his governance. He was even regarded as a kind of dangerous nationalist by The New York Times.
Mr. Abe's father was also an LDP lawmaker who had his own faction with an ambition to become prime minister of Japan. But Shintaro Abe died in 1991 for some disease to be succeeded by his son Mr. Shinzo Abe. Shintaro Abe's wife, namely the mother of Mr. Shinzo Abe, was a daughter of Nobuskuke Kishi, the prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960.
Nobusuke Kishi is one of the most notable and controversial politicians in the modern Japanese history. Kishi was an elite official of the Imperial Government of Japan. He also worked in the Manchukuo Government in 1930s, taking an important part in development of the subject country to the Empire of Japan. Kishi then became a state minister in the Cabinet formed by Prime Minister/General Hideki Tojyo who launched the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. When the Empire of Japan lost the war against the US in 1945, Kishi was taken captive as a war criminal by the US military that occupied Japan. However, in 1948 Kishi was released from a prison to become a lawmaker of post-war democratic Japan.
So, being a grandson of notorious Nobusuke Kishi is a big merit for Mr. Shinzo Abe. When Mr. Abe became prime minister of Japan in 2006, he was 52 years old, the youngest as prime minister of Japan after WWII. But in the next year, he was taken illness suddenly at the beginning of sessions of the National Diet to resign, surprising the people so terribly. One of the causes of his illness was defeat of the then ruling party LDP in the Upper House election held a few months earlier. Mr. Abe was under strong pressure at the time which was said to trigger his illness.
And today, LDP lawmaker Mr. Abe was elected again as new president of the LDP, the major opposition party in Japan, since he was running for this presidential election as he had recovered from the illness that had affected him so badly in 2007.
And as most of today's polls indicate, it is expected that the LDP will take over power from the DPJ now being led by Prime Minister Mr. Yoshihiko Noda in the next general election. What is more critical is that PM Mr. Noda already promised former President of the LDP Mr. Sadakazu Tanigaki to dissolve the Lower House in near future and hold a general election in exchange of support from Mr. Tanigaki in passing a tax rise bill. The Lower House has power to choose the prime minister of Japan. Accordingly, Lower House member Mr. Abe is expected to be elected as new prime minister of Japan after the LDP wins the next general election.
Put simply, as today Mr. Abe became president of the very-pro-American/capitalistic LDP, it is almost promised that Mr. Shinzo Abe will be next prime minister of Japan within a few months at the earliest.
Anyway, the term of office for incumbent Lower House members of the Japanese parliament ends in August 2013. So, at the latest, Mr. Shinzo Abe of the LDP will be new prime minister of Japan one year later. It will be his second time as prime minister of Japan after the first resignation in 2007, which is the first case in Japan after WWII.
So, a very rare situation is going to surface in the Japanese politics with a so-called nationalistic lawmaker, Mr. Shinzo Abe.
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Luk 9:26 For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels.