Poll shows Fukuda catching up in Japan PM race

TOKYO, May 15 (Reuters) A Japanese ruling party lawmaker whose stance towards China is considered more conciliatory than Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is gaining increasing support as a possible successor, media polls showed today.

A survey by Kyodo news agency showed that Yasuo Fukuda was gaining on Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, who has topped lists of lawmakers preferred by voters to succeed Koizumi.

Koizumi has said he will step down in September.

Abe, known for his hawkish views on China and North Korea, remained the most popular choice, with 40.1 per cent of respondents saying he was best suited to become the next prime minister. But Fukuda was closing the gap, with support rising to 31.4 percent, Kyodo said.

Support for Abe fell by nearly 12 percentage points from Kyodo's previous survey in April, while Fukuda's support rose by almost nine percentage points.

In a similar poll in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 21 per cent of respondents said they supported Fukuda, while 33 per cent supported Abe.

Fukuda's growing support may come in part from voters who are dissatisfied with positions taken by Koizumi and Abe on Asian diplomacy, the Nihon Keizai said. The top reason cited by those who chose Fukuda in the paper's poll was his stance on diplomacy and security policies, it said.

Japan's relations with China and South Korea have chilled markedly since Koizumi took office in 2001 and started making annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, a Shinto memorial that honours some war criminals along with Japan's war dead.

Nearly 52 per cent of respondents to the Kyodo poll said the next prime minister should not visit Yasukuni, while 35.8 per cent said they supported visits to the shrine.

Fukuda, who hails from the same party faction as Koizumi and Abe, joined a non-partisan group of lawmakers in November to push for a secular war memorial as a place for Japan to honour its war dead without angering its neighbours, who see the shrine as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Fukuda has denied that his recent visits to South Korea and West Asia, and a week-long trip to the United States that began last Wednesday, were part of a strategy to seek the post held by his father, Takeo Fukuda, who was prime minister three decades ago.

A separate survey by the Mainichi newspaper found that support for Abe rose 2 points from April to 38 per cent, and that support for Fukuda also rose 2 points to 20 per cent. In a poll by national broadcaster NHK, Abe scored 30 per cent, while Fukuda's support was at 16 percent.

Koizumi has said he will step down as ruling Liberal Democratic Party president when his current term expires in September. The position virtually guarantees the premiership by virtue of the party's majority in parliament's lower house.

REUTERS SHB ND1756