Latter-day samurai could transform politics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/story/0,15205,1567716,00.html
Simon Tisdall
Monday September 12, 2005
The Guardian
Junichiro Koizumi is the sudoku puzzle of Japanese politics. Nothing
seems to add up. But somehow it all works out in the end. He is
portrayed as a maverick loner. But yesterday's landslide election
victory puts him in line to become one of Japan's longest-serving
post-war prime ministers. He is treated like a pop idol, nicknamed the
Lion King. Yet his abstemious lifestyle more resembles a latter-day
samurai.
After taking office in 2001, Mr Koizumi failed to deliver political
reform. But the snap poll, called after privatisation plans were
thwarted by ruling Liberal Democratic party rebels, has won him an
unprecedented reformist mandate. In British terms, it is his Clause IV
moment. And it could permanently change Japanese politics.
Koizumi
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