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Japan's new Cabinet gets rave reviews

Buoyed by the appointment of a popular young lawmaker to a top party post, voter support for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's new media-friendly Cabinet soared in surveys released yesterday, an auspicious sign for his ruling party ahead of an expected November election.

Nearly two-thirds of voters surveyed by three newspapers after Koizumi shook up his Cabinet on Monday said that they backed the prime minister and the new line-up, a level of support not seen since his high-profile North Korea summit one year ago.

Key to the jump in popularity -- the cornerstone of the maverick Koizumi's political power -- was his appointment of popular lawmaker Shinzo Abe, 49, as Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secretary-general, the ruling party's de facto campaign manager and a post traditionally held by a veteran parliamentarian.

Koizumi's decision to retain controversial pro-reform academic Heizo Takenaka in his two key economics and banking posts and a hefty dose of youth in the new Cabinet also helped garner public support, as did signs of an emerging economic recovery and a recent rise in Tokyo share prices.

LDP old-guard barons had pressed for Takenaka, whose strict banking policies they say hurt Japan's economy, to be ousted.

"Personally, I think it's brilliant," said one Western political analyst of Koizumi's personnel choices. "They've set up for a media blitz that will obliterate the opposition."

The shake-up of the Cabinet and the top LDP line-up followed Koizumi's hefty victory in Saturday's election for LDP president, which allowed him to stay on as premier and lead the party into a general election he has all but confirmed for November.

Abe's presence on the campaign trail could well give the LDP an added boost akin to that provided by outspoken lawmaker Makiko Tanaka in a 2001 upper house election, in which the popular Koizumi-Tanaka duo were key to the party's good performance.

Koizumi later tapped Tanaka, known for her brash criticism of the status quo, as foreign minister but then sacked her over a bitter feud with elite diplomats.

She has since resigned from parliament over a scandal involving misuse of an aide's salary.

The appointment of Abe, often tipped as a future prime minister, scored a hefty 75 percent support rate in the Nihon Keizai newspaper survey, while voter backing for the LDP itself jumped to 50 percent for the first time in two years.

The popularity punch packed by Abe and the new Cabinet is an obvious headache for the main opposition Democratic Party, which had hoped to paint the LDP as a party of elderly politicians whose links to vested interests make them incapable of reform.

A junior lawmaker whose political pedigree includes his father, the late foreign minister Shintaro Abe and grandfather, the late prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, Abe is popular both for his fashion sense and his tough stance towards North Korea on the emotional topic of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago.

Other media-friendly Cabinet choices include Environment Minister Yuriko Koike, 51, a former TV broadcaster, and Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa, 50, along with Public Safety Minister Kiyoko Ono, 67, a former Olympic gymnast.
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