Teacher MarJapan Installs Outspoken Populist Naoto Kan as PM
"Japan Installs Outspoken Populist Naoto Kan as PM"
TOKYO – Japan's parliament installed outspoken populist Naoto Kan as prime minister Friday, handing the political veteran the immediate task of rallying his party and reclaiming its mandate for change before elections next month.
Kan succeeds Yukio Hatoyama, who stepped down Wednesday after squandering the public's high hopes with broken campaign promises and financial scandals.
"My task is to rebuild this nation," said Kan, who was Hatoyama's finance minister.
The 63-year-old with a reputation for confronting Japan's powerful bureaucrats must contend with a daunting list of problems. The world's No. 2 economy is burdened with the largest public debt in the industrialized world, sluggish growth and an aging, shrinking population.
But more immediately, with upper house elections looming in July, he will need to convince voters of his party's competence after they were disappointed by Hatoyama's financial scandals and bungled handling of the relocation of a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa.
Kan's first task will be to form a Cabinet. He said he would announce the members "early next week" after thinking about the posts over the weekend.
"We will work together as one in the face of the tough political situation and the upcoming upper house elections and fight together unified," he told party members. "Our first priority is to regain the trust of the people."
Kan, the country's sixth prime minister in four years, pledged to confront problems linking money and politics. He also stressed the need for fiscal discipline while trying to spur economic growth.
Chosen Friday morning (June 4) as new chief of the Democratic Party of Japan, Kan was voted into office a few hours later by the lower house, the more powerful chamber of Japan's parliament.
Kan received 313 votes out of 477, with Liberal Democratic Party head Sadakazu Tanigaki getting 116. The rest went to candidates of smaller parties. The upper house approved Kan immediately afterward.
While his political philosophy is hard to neatly categorize, analysts and fellow lawmakers agree that his personal traits and background as a civic activist and proactive Cabinet minister set him apart from Hatoyama.
"He has a record of acting on the basis of his beliefs and not backing down," said Tobias Harris, a political analyst who once worked as an aide to a Democratic lawmaker in Japan. "Those are good signs for a prime minister, and I think those are qualities that Hatoyama did not have."