One of the 3 youngest ministers and the son of the former PM, Shinjiro Koizumi and his wife, Christel Takigawa. (Image via Kyodo News)

Aiming for the longest premiership, Abe to appoint Koizumi's son into the cabinet

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Politics & Economic
News Flash Japan
Sep 11, 2019
1996
Having assumed duty as the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe is set to be the PM with the longest premiership in the upcoming November. To further strengthen his stance, Abe had made the draft for his cabinet.

The draft, mainly consisting of new players and lawmakers, still keeps some familiar names seen to pledge loyalty to Abe such as the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga (70), and Minister of Finance, Taro Aso (78).

However, one name took the attention of the Japanese people. In the draft, Abe included Shinjiro Koizumi (38), the son of Abe’s predecessor in 2006, Junichiro Koizumi. Shinjiro is set to be one of the 13 new appointed ministers and the third youngest lawmakers in the cabinet.

At first, Shinjiro doubted that he would make it to the cabinet. The husband of French – Japanese TV presenter, Christel Takigawa, was said to take paternity leave since the couple is expecting a baby in early 2020.

Shinjiro’s appointment as one of the ministers in the cabinet will pave his way even more as the majority of the Japanese prefer him to succeed Abe as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) whose office term is coming to an end in the upcoming September 2021.

While Shinjiro is favored to be the successor of Abe to be the leader of LDP, the question now is who will succeed Abe’s PM seat? There are numerous candidates for that and Abe would like to keep them close to him at their posts.

Fumio Kishida – said to be the next PM – is appointed as LDP’s Chief of Party Policy. However, the Japanese assume that Abe would probably hand the seat to his right-hand man, Suga. Toshimitsu Motegi (63) – also said to be the next PM – would replace Taro Kono (56) as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Motegi, the former Minister of Economy and a Harvard graduate, would keep the trade talks with the U.S alive. Kono, on the other hand, is set to be the Minister of Defense.

Seiko Hashimoto, the former Olympic skater, is appointed to be Minister of Olympics. Hashimoto became one of the women to win posts in the cabinet.

However, this does not mean that Abe would want to be succeeded. The current PM is aiming for the fourth term as LDP leader to achieve his objective in revising the constitution which is too U.S-based, an objective agreed by both Abe and LDP.

This objective, nonetheless, got even tougher as LDP had lost about two-thirds of its majority at the Japanese Upper House (The Diet) which is the mandatory requirement for Abe to revise the constitution, besides a majority in a referendum.

Source: https://japantoday.com/category/politics/Abe-headed-for-longest-premiership-set-to-bring-Koizumi-into-cabinet

Politics , Asia , Japan , Shinzo-Abe , Shinjiro-Koizumi