Japan’s PM hopeful Sanae Takaichi avoids war shrine visit amid political wrangle
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Ms Sanae Takaichi made an offering on the morning of Oct 17, the first day of the autumn festival.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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TOKYO - The new head of Japan’s ruling party, Ms Sanae Takaichi, avoided visiting a controversial Tokyo war shrine on Oct 17, as political wrangling intensifies over her bid to become prime minister.
Ms Takaichi became Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader
The LDP is now in talks about forming a different alliance, boosting Ms Takaichi’s chances of becoming premier in a parliamentary vote that media reports said will likely happen on Oct 21.
Past visits by top leaders to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, which honours convicted war criminals, have angered China and South Korea, and no Japanese premier has visited since 2013.
Ms Takaichi, seen as an arch-conservative and China hawk from the right of the LDP, has visited in the past, including as a government minister.
However, on Oct 17, the opening day of the autumn festival, the 64-year-old sent an offering but did not make an appearance.
Reports said she would stay away in order not to upset Japan’s neighbours.
Trump visit
The clock is ticking for Ms Takaichi to become Japan’s fifth prime minister in as many years, with US President Donald Trump due to visit Japan at the end of October.
Details of Washington and Tokyo’s trade deal remain unresolved, but Mr Trump wants Japan to stop Russian energy imports and boost defence spending.
The LDP’s coalition partner of 26 years, the Komeito party, pulled the plug on their alliance
Komeito said the LDP has failed to tighten rules on party funding, following a damaging slush fund scandal involving dodgy payments of millions of dollars.
The LDP this week began talks on forming a new coalition with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) instead.
The two parties would be two seats short of a majority, but the alliance would still likely ensure that Ms Takaichi succeeds in becoming premier.
This is because while Ms Takaichi needs support from a majority of MPs to become premier, in a second-round two-way run-off, she needs only more than the other person.
A spanner could be in the works if opposition parties agreed on a rival candidate, but talks on this during the week appeared to make little headway.
Mr Fumitake Fujita, co-head of JIP, said on Oct 16 that the LDP and his party’s policies were “very close in many areas”, but added that major differences remained, ahead of more talks on Oct 17.
“If the LDP and the JIP agree to form a coalition, Takaichi will become new prime minister,” Professor Mikitaka Masuyama from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies told AFP.
But he cautioned that like in recent elections, support for the LDP may continue to slide.
“It can be either way. The LDP under Takaichi may not be popular with a range of voters on the right and left that former LDP leaders Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe had enjoyed,” Prof Masuyama said.
“Or, her government may regain support from conservatives who left the LDP for other conservative opposition parties” in the July Upper House election, he said. AFP
