Looks like the press is diving into the “post-Koizumi” story head-on today. This morning’s Nikkei has a profile of “young” Shinzo Abe, billed as the first in their series of articles about possible successors to Koizumi. Meanwhile, the Daily Yomiuri has a fun medley of articles today. The first two focus on Yasuo Fukuda and Taku Yamasaki, the “moderate” contenders. Then there’s this fun little nugget:

Taro Aso, on a trip to Australia for talks with his U.S. and Australian counterparts, said Saturday he thought he had had “more experience” in the political arena than Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe…

Referring to economics, Aso said, “I’ve never seen Abe talking about the economy.” “When it comes to diplomacy, he is a bit of a rightist, although there is no big difference in positions between the two of us,” Aso said.

As far as popular opinion goes, Fukuda and Abe seem to be the most popular candidates at this point. Of course, this isn’t a public election—it’s an internal LDP election, and their opinion will rule the day.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 19th, 2006 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Japan, Politics, Rightwingers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.