Finance Minister Naoto Kan, a straight-talking fiscal conservative, was emerging as Japan's presumed next prime minister Thursday as support among ruling party members coalesced around him, according to AP. Major Japanese morning papers nearly all predicted that Kan, who has a reputation for standing up to Japan's powerful bureaucrats, would replace Yukio Hatoyama, who resigned Wednesday after just eight months in office amid public disgust with his broken campaign promises. The next prime minister faces the tough job trying to revive voter confidence in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan ahead of upper house elections expected in July. The vote is seen as a referendum on the Democrats after they trounced the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party in lower house elections last August. Kan, 63, declared he will run in Friday's ruling party election to choose a new leader. Because the Democrats control a majority in the more powerful lower house of parliament, the new party chief will almost certainly become prime minister. Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada had been considered a contender, but said Thursday he was not running for the job and that he backed Kan instead. Transport Minister Seiji Maehara, another possible candidate, also said he would support Kan. «In last August's elections, voters put their hopes in us to take power and change Japanese politics. We came to a consensus that Mr. Kan, who is keenly aware of that, is the one who is appropriate» to become the next leader, Maehara said. Little-known Shinji Tarudoko, chairman of the party's environmental panel, has the backing of some younger party members and is the only other person so far to say he is running. Still, the outcome of internal party jockeying remains unclear, with a key role likely played by Ichiro Ozawa, who resigned as the party's No. 2 figure Wednesday but is still seen as a power-broker. Kan is considered a good choice for rallying support for the party because of his reputation as a principled politician and because he is not a political blue blood like Hatoyama and several past prime ministers. A former health minister, Kan gained notoriety in 1996 after exposing a government cover-up of HIV-tainted blood products that caused thousands of hemophilia patients to contract the virus that causes AIDS. «There will be a bit of a bounce of support» from the public if Kan is named prime minister, predicted Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo. «He's outspoken, he doesn't mind stepping on toes, he's a person who has got a bit of a populist side to him,» Kingston said. «I think Kan will probably lead the party to a somewhat better, somewhat surprising result in those elections. I don't think they'll be quite as catastrophic as some pundits are predicting.» Nicknamed «Irritable Kan» in the past for his temper, Kan is considered fiscally conservative. He has repeatedly expressed the need for Japan to raise its consumption tax, currently at 5 percent, to help shrink the growing government debt _ a serious problem facing the world's second-biggest economy as its population ages and declines. Winning back voter confidence after Hatoyama's fall from grace will be a tall order for anyone who takes the helm of the DPJ. The party roared into power amid high hopes last August when it crushed the conservative Liberal Democratic Party that had ruled Japan for most of the post-World War II era. Voters were inspired by the party's vision to bring more accountability to politics-as-usual and rein in powerful bureaucrats. For awhile the public seemed satisfied with the Hatoyama government's attempts to cut back on huge public works projects. But in recent months his Cabinet's approval ratings tumbled amid political funding scandals and, most critically, Hatoyama's backtracking on a campaign pledge to move a key U.S. Marine base off the southern island of Okinawa. He also reneged on other promises such as cash handouts to families with children, halving the money from the initial proposal, and toll-free highways, which have been postponed. The Liberal Democrats remain in disarray after their defeat last year, but recent polls show some voters may be swinging back toward the party. Even a disastrous performance in the upper house elections, where half the seats are up for grabs, would not threaten the DPJ's grip on power because they command a large lower-house majority. But heavy losses would likely force the party to woo new coalition partners to ensure smoother passage of bills. Currently, the tiny Peoples' New Party is the DPJ's only coalition partner after the Social Democrats ditched the government last weekend. Its leader, Mizuho Fukushima, rejected Hatoyama's decision to keep U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma on Okinawa, a move that has angered island residents and will continue to be a festering problem. «The DPJ has been tarnished by amateurish policymaking, repeated flip-flops and money scandals involving Hatoyama and Ozawa,» Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said in a report. It is «struggling to regain credibility.»
