Japan LDP members favour Abe as next PM -paper

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

TOKYO, June 28 (Reuters) A majority of the rank and file members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party want Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe to become the country's next prime minister, a newspaper survey released today showed.

A nationwide survey of 568 rank and file LDP members, conducted by the Yomiuri newspaper on June 23-25, found that 56.5 percent of those polled think Abe should succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is set to step down in September.

Abe, 51, a popular political blue-blood known for his tough stance towards China and North Korea, has consistently topped the list of possible candidates in media polls of voters.

Key rival Yasuo Fukuda, a 69-year-old veteran lawmaker, received 23.9 percent of support from the LDP members, according to the Yomiuri poll.

Only 2.3 percent of the respondents said Foreign Minister Taro Aso, 65, was best suited for the job, while Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, 61, garnered 1.8 percent.

The candidate who gets a majority of the 703 votes -- 403 LDP members of parliament and 300 votes from party chapters in 47 prefectures -- will replace Koizumi as party president. The LDP president is effectively guaranteed the job of prime minister by virtue of the party's majority in parliament's lower house.

Analysts say Sept. 20 appears a likely date for the election.

Japan's relations with China and South Korea have become a focal point in the race to succeed Koizumi, who critics say is responsible for worsened ties with the two Asian neighbours because of his annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are honoured along with the nation's war dead.

Forty-five percent of the LDP members polled by the Yomiuri said Koizumi's successor should visit Yasukuni, while 37 per cent opposed such visits.

Abe has defended Koizumi's trips to the Shinto shrine but has not made clear whether he would visit it if he became prime minister.

Fukuda favours building a new, secular memorial, and has riticised Koizumi's Asian diplomacy and stressed the need for Japan to improve diplomatic relations with China and South Korea.

REUTERS SK BST0759

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