Shinzo Abe, a nationalist former prime minister, was elected to lead Japan’s main opposition party Wednesday, giving him a chance of regaining the nation’s top job — a prospect that could worsen the country’s tense relations with China and its other Asian neighbors.

Ex-PM wins Japan opposition party vote

FORMER Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a staunch nationalist who walked away as Japan’s leader five years ago, won an election Wednesday to lead Japan’s main opposition party, making it likely he will return to power if the unpopular government goes down in promised elections.

Abe beat Shigeru Ishiba in a run-off for the top position in the Liberal Democratic Party, which is expected to be instrumental in forming a new government in polls likely in the autumn.

In a speech after his victory, Abe pledged to work with lawmakers and get the LDP back into government, three years after it was booted from office.

“Not only for ourselves, not only for the LDP but for the purpose of building a strong Japan, a prosperous Japan, and a Japan in which Japanese people will be able to feel happy about being Japanese,” he said.

Abe, who was prime minister for a year before abruptly resigning in 2007 with an intestinal ailment, has taken a tough stance in a territorial dispute with China over Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. He also promised to work to revive Japan’s long-stagnant economy and renew a sense of national pride.

“Our land and seas are threatened, and the economy has deteriorated after years of deflation. We must break free from this difficult situation and make a strong Japan, and that is my mission,” he said at a press conference after the vote.

Abe came from behind to defeat ex-defense chief Ishiba in the vote of LDP lawmakers.

Abe finished second to Ishiba in the first round of voting, which included three other candidates, but beat him 108-89 in the head-to-head run-off.

Abe, 58, will most likely become prime minister if the conservative LDP wins the most seats in the next election. Recent polls indicate it would, though it may need to form a coalition with other parties to govern.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said he plans to call elections soon, but has given no timeframe, and has lately suggested he plans to stay in office. Elections must be called by next summer.

Abe thanked party members for giving him another chance. He says he is now in good health.

“I’m still responsible for causing all of you trouble with my sudden resignation as prime minister,” he said. “I will do my utmost to rise back to power with all of you.”

But analysts say Abe’s triumph could end up hurting the LDP because he was the most nationalistic of the five candidates, and because voters will remember his resignation.

“For ordinary Japanese who are not ideologically leaning one way or another, I think they’ll say, ‘Really? That’s the guy who quit and left Japan in limbo,’” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Nakano added that already strained relations with China could worsen if Abe becomes prime minister. “He brings as baggage all kind of things that are difficult to deal with for the Chinese leaders,” he said.

Abe’s previous 2006-2007 tenure as prime minister was marked by a nationalistic agenda.

He urged a revision of Japan’s pacifist constitution, pressed for patriotic education, upgraded the defense agency to ministry status and pushed for Japan to have a greater international peacekeeping role.

He tried to improve relations with China that had frozen under his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, after Koizumi repeatedly visited Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, including executed war criminals. But Abe also upset China and South Korea with attempts to revise Japan’s wartime history, and now says he regrets never visiting the shrine as prime minister himself.

He said there was no proof its military had coerced Korean, Chinese and other women into prostitution in military brothels during World War II. He later apologized, but lately he has been suggesting that a landmark 1993 apology for sex slavery may need revising.

The LDP is a conservative, pro-business party that led Japan nearly continuously since 1955 until it was defeated by the Democratic Party of Japan, which swept to power in 2009 amid high hopes for change.

Voters are disappointed in the DPJ, and polls give the LDP a modest advantage, suggesting that the LDP would win the most seats in an imminent election, but not a majority. Many voters, however, remain undecided.

Left out of the party run-off was Nobuteru Ishihara, the son of outspoken nationalistic Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara. It was Ishihara who set off Japan’s territorial dispute by proposing to buy and develop the Diaoyu Islands, which Japan calls Senkaku.

Abe suggested that as far as the LDP was concerned, there is no territorial dispute over the islands.

“In response to the various movements by China around the Senkakus, I will clearly show my intention to take a firm action to protect the islands and the territorial waters around them,” he said Wednesday.

Abe also accused the DPJ of weakening Japan’s security alliance with the United States, and promised to repair it.

Noda had said he would call elections “soon” in exchange for the LDP’s support in passing legislation to double Japan’s 5 percent sales tax earlier this year. But Noda has given no date for the elections, and lately he has suggested that the agreement should be revised in view of the LDP’s support of a nonbinding censure motion against him in the opposition-controlled upper house.

 Now, the LDP and DPJ appear set to limp into an election to decide which party is the least unpopular.

 “I don’t think the Liberal Democrats can hope for much more support under Mr. Abe, who comes with a sense of tired dejavu,” said Atsuo Ito, an independent political analyst who has worked in the secretariats of both parties.

“But there will be no change to the public’s deep-rooted disillusionment with the Democrats,” he said.

 If the two largest parties perform as tepidly as recent polls suggest, the future political landscape may depend on whether they can work together, given that their platforms are similar on most issues.

 “It would be good if the parties can somehow cooperate across party lines,” Harumi Arima, a well-known political commentator and newscaster. “But if they can’t, I’m afraid we’re heading into more confusion.”

Abe was born in Nagato and soon moved to Tokyo. He studied political science at Seikei University and graduated in 1977. He later moved to the United States and studied “English for foreign students” and political science at the University of Southern California.

In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel. He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of governmental positions including executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and private secretary to the LDP secretary-general.

Abe was born into a political family of significance. His grandfather, Kan Abe, and father, Shintaro Abe, were both politicians. Abe’s mother, Yoko Kishi, is the daughter of Nobusuke Kishi, prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Kishi had been a member of the Tojo Cabinet during the Second World War. Since GHQ’s policy changed and became more anti-communist, Kishi has been released from Sugamo Prison, and later established the Japan Democratic Party.

In 1950 Shigeru Yoshida’s Liberal Party and Kishi’s Democratic Party merged as an anti-leftist coalition and became the Liberal Democratic Party of today.(SD-Agencies)