JAPAN: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigns
Updated
Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has announced his resignation. Pressure had been mounting on Mr Abe to resign since his party's crushing defeat in the July elections. Mr Abe says it was the opposition's refusal to allow him to extend Japan's mission in Afghanistan that triggered his exit.
SUGIMOTO: Well actually quite a number of LDP senior members are openly critical of Mr Abe's decision at this particular time point. If he wanted to resign he should have resigned after the devastating defeat in the Upper House election and there are quite a number of people who are calling Mr Abe quite irresponsible within the LDP.
MCCARTHY: Do you think he's right when he says that a new leader will have more success in getting the opposition to support the mission?
SUGIMOTO: I doubt it very much because the opposition leader Mr Ichiro Ozawa, the head of the Democratic Party, is of the view that the activity in the Indian Ocean has not been authorised by the United Nations and therefore the self defence forces activity there is unconstitutional, and it doesn't seem that he would give an inch on this issue.
MCCARTHY: Not withstanding the Afghanistan issue, is it fair to say that Mr Abe has been something of a lame duck prime minister since the July election loss? Was his resignation really inevitable?
SUGIMOTO: This was quite inevitable, it was a matter of timing, but his choice of timing is quite surprising and perplexing. The Mainichi Shimbun, one of the Japanese major national dailies is reporting that a mass circulation weekly has been investigating Mr Abe's own tax evasion scandal and was about to publish the article this week. Whether this has anything to do with his sudden decision to resign is a matter for speculation at this stage.
MCCARTHY: Mr Abe took office last year on a strongly nationalistic platform. He came to power with a pledge to rewrite the pacifist constitution. How disappointed might he be that he hasn't realised that goal?
SUGIMOTO: He would be quite disappointed. He ran for the LDP's presidency on the slogan of making Japan a beautiful country, and then he wanted to make Japanese nation politically and economically and strategically strong, and in that sense he's a nationalist and in the Japanese political sense too very right wing political leader. But now he's gone and because of the Indian Ocean situation the strategic relationship between the United States and Japan will become rather delicate. Party bosses are now openly struggling to obtain their share of power. So a variety of reform programs that Abe wanted to put into motion are unlikely to speed up in the foreseeable future.
MCCARTHY: Well turning to the future, Taro Aso, the party secretary general, is touted as the frontrunner to replace Mr Abe. What do we know of Mr Aso?
SUGIMOTO: He is obviously a frontrunner and he's the former foreign minister who ran for LDP's presidency in the past. He is an avid reader of Manga comics, he has that kind of public face. He is also politically quite close to the nationalistic line that Abe has taken.
MCCARTHY: Indeed something of a hawk on security issues as well?
SUGIMOTO: Yes he is but on the other side of the fence, particularly in the anti-Abe camp there is Sadakazu Tanigaki, former treasurer who will have a strong showing. Yasuo Fukuda, former party secretary is a seasoned politicians. Their views are quite different from Mr Abe. So the situation is quite fluid and unpredictable and I would not be surprised if an invisible dark horse at this stage may become a frontrunner in the next few days.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speakers: LaTrobe University's Professor Emeritus, Yoshio Sugimoto
