TOKYO, Aug 27: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shook up his cabinet in a sweeping reshuffle on Monday, tapping experienced hands to try to rescue a government beleaguered by scandals and a crushing election defeat.
The conservative premier brought in new ministers for defence, finance and foreign affairs and replaced his right-hand man, the chief cabinet secretary.
Abe, whose last cabinet was plagued by scandal, looked to veterans within the ruling party, notably influential former foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura who returns to his old job.
Abe said the new cabinet will pay special attention to scandals over money as well as caring for provincial regions, which have failed to benefit significantly from an economic recovery and revolted in an election last month.
“We are resolved to do our utmost to show achievements so that politics and the administration will regain the lost trust of the public,” Abe told a press conference after forming the new cabinet.
“We must continue reforms and keep up the ongoing economic growth. Unless there is growth, we wouldn’t be able to share its fruits with local communities,” he said.
Abe picked outgoing Foreign Minister Taro Aso as secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, its top job after the premier.
Aso is popular within the party, which is reeling after losing control last month of the upper house of parliament for the first time since the Liberal Democrats were founded in 1955.
Abe faces record low approval ratings and calls from backbenchers to stand down after the election defeat. But he has refused to quit, insisting voters supported his ideas and were upset by the scandals.
For foreign minister he brought back Machimura, who heads the most powerful faction in the ruling party – making him a crucial political asset.
Machimura was foreign minister during a 2005 diplomatic crisis with China, which saw rare public protests that scuttled Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Kaoru Yosano, 69, the new chief cabinet secretary, is an elder in the party and a favourite of the market for his support of free-market reforms.
Yosano replaces Yasuhisa Shiozaki, 56, a US-educated former central bank official who, along with Abe, had been seen as part of a new generation of Japanese politicians.
Fukushiro Nukaga, a defence minister under Koizumi, moves into the finance ministry of the world’s second largest economy while former foreign minister Masahiko Komura takes over at defence.
The new team will face a key test in the weeks ahead with the opposition gearing up to fight Abe’s plan to renew Japanese logistic support for US-led operations in Afghanistan.
“As a responsible member of the international community, we naturally have to do this,” Machimura said.
The opposition immediately went on the attack.
“The only surprise is that there was no surprise,” said Yukio Hatoyama, a senior leader of the largest opposition Democratic Party, saying Abe tapped “the very people who supported his decision to stay.” Mizuho Fukushima, head of the left-wing Social Democratic Party, described the cabinet as a “parent-teacher association for Prime Minister Abe”. “He has surrounded himself with former ministers, hoping that he can get through the current situation without any gaffes,” she said.
Abe, Japan’s first premier born after World War II, and at 52 the youngest in modern times, took office last year with pledges to end legacies of defeat, including by rewriting the US-imposed pacifist constitution.
But his approval ratings have nosedived amid public perceptions he lacked authority.
Three of Abe’s ministers stepped down over gaffes or scandals and another committed suicide while under investigation for alleged misuse of political funds.
Takayoshi Shibata, professor emeritus at Tokyo Keizai University, said Abe was branching out after a first cabinet packed with friends.
The new line-up “is dotted with old, familiar faces and he seems to be trying to balance factions within the party.
“But it is impossible to predict if this strategy will help him.”
—AFP