Shinzo Abe officially chosen as Japan's next prime minister

Hawkish Shinzo?Abe?was voted back into office as prime minister Wednesday and immediately named a new Cabinet, ending three years of liberal party government.

By ERIC TALMADGE,?Associated Press / December 26, 2012

Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party leader and the next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, stands in front of a picture of Japan's national flag as he speaks to the media at the Parliament in Tokyo Tuesday, Dec. 18.

Toru Hanai/Reuters

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Old-guard veteran Shinzo?Abe?was voted back into office as prime minister Wednesday and immediately named a new Cabinet, ending three years of liberal administrations and restoring power to his conservative, pro-big-business party that has run Japan for most of the post-World War II era.

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Abe, whose nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan's neighbors, is the country's seventh prime minister in just over six years. He was also prime minister in 2006-2007 before resigning for health reasons that he says are no longer an issue.

The outspoken and often hawkish leader has promised to restore growth to an economy that has been struggling for 20 years. His new administration also faces souring relations with China and a complex debate over whether resource-poor Japan should wean itself off nuclear energy after last year's earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at an atomic power plant.

On top of that, he will have to win over a public that gave his party a lukewarm mandate in elections on Dec. 16, along with keeping at bay a still-powerful opposition in parliament. Though his party and its Buddhist-backed coalition partner is the biggest bloc in the more influential lower house,?Abe?actually came up short in the first round of voting in the upper house, then won in a runoff.

Capitalizing on voter discontent with the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan,?Abe?has vowed to shore up the economy, deal with a swelling national debt and come up with a fresh recovery plan following last year's tsunami disaster, which set off the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

"Disaster reconstruction and economic recovery are our first and foremost tasks," new Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in announcing what he called a "crisis breakthrough Cabinet."

In foreign policy,?Abe?has stressed his desire to make Japan a bigger player on the world stage, a stance that has resonated with many voters who are concerned that their nation is taking a back seat economically and diplomatically to China.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/prRW0egflqQ/Shinzo-Abe-officially-chosen-as-Japan-s-next-prime-minister

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