Posted on 06/04/2010 5:38:37 AM PDT by paudio
Japan's parliament elected outspoken populist Naoto Kan as prime minister Friday, handing the political veteran the immediate task of rallying his party and reclaiming its mandate for change before elections next month.
Kan succeeds Yukio Hatoyama, who stepped down Wednesday after squandering the public's high hopes with broken campaign promises, including moving a U.S. Marine base off Okinawa island, and financial scandals.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Hatoyama was powerless. He couldn’t rally his own base, he couldn’t form a coallition, he couldn’t push through any agenda. It’s for the better.
My local radio program just had a professor on that compared Hatoyama to Obama. It was interesting: two well educated golden boys, darlings of the media that really do not have a clue about the realities of the world
Hatoyama’s biggest problem is that he could not convince anyone that he was not Ozawa’s puppet, and Ozawa’s recent financial scandals were seen by the Japanese public as being every bit as bad as anything the LDP had done.
The overall effect totally obliterated the DPJ’s image as a reform party. That combined with the inexperience and downright incompetence of his cabinet members and his failure to keep a single campaign promise led to Hatoyama’s downfall.
The Japanese are experiencing major buyers remorse right now and the LDP is licking their chops about the next election. I expect a major landslide in the LDP’s favor.
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