Koizumi has made his first public speeches since leaving office in support of LDP bids for office in two simultaneous by-elections to be held this Sunday in Kanagawa and Osaka Prefectures. I’m not all that interested in the races, since they both seem to be swinging LDP, it’s great to see the man’s face again.
Unfortunately, it looks next to impossible to get a full version of this speech. TV stations seem to only have carried parts of it, the online news sites don’t seem to be carrying it, Koizumi doesn’t have his own website, and the LDP’s site hasn’t uploaded it yet, if they plan to at all. Japan does have something like America’s C-Span, but it’s an extremely minor channel that very few Japanese people receive.
And yes I checked YouTube as well, but it wasn’t there. Thankfully I found some sweet footage while I was looking:
A Koizumi anime outlining some highlights of his administration, such as his style in selecting cabinet members and bringing his own boxed lunch to the historical summit meeting with Kim Jong Il – even Abe looks interesting when animated!
A TV clip reporting on a magazine article in Shukan Post that Koizumi moved out of the PM’s official residence the next day after the LDP presidential election, stayed in a 520k yen per night hotel room, only to move into a meager 50k yen/night room immediately after stepping down as PM. He brought dozens of classical music CDs with him, said he’d take a year to “recharge” and is enjoying a “leisurely retirement.” Meanwhile, Yoshiro Mori, Koizumi’s predecessor, has increased his political wheeling and dealing and is rumored to have a great influence on Abe. Mori had pledged to step down as his party faction’s chairman when Koizumi left, but apparently since Abe will do whatever he says, leading the faction is just too “fun” to quit. Despite Abe’s pledge to go it alone when deciding on a cabinet, Mori leaked to the press that he had a sit-down with Abe to discuss his new administration. The rumors are
And last but not least, a great retrospective of what made Koizumi rock – the photo ops. Watch closely to see Koizumi in a Guardian Angels uniform, with beret!
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