Japan for the first time has a chance of a female prime minister in Yuriko Koike, but feminists are skeptical on whether she would do the country’s women any good.
Koike has hinted she may run in the Sept. 22 race within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to replace unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who abruptly resigned last Monday.
The former TV anchorwoman would be the first woman to seek the prime minister’s post in male-dominated Japan, which has some of the world’s lowest rates of female representation in politics and business.
PHOTO: AFP
“I welcome a female candidate running in the election — generally speaking,” said Mitsuko Shimomura, a journalist and one of the founders of Win Win, a lobby for female politicians similar to the US Emily’s List.
“But her bid to become the first woman prime minister would do nothing to increase the social standing of Japanese women,” she said. “Many women around me feel sick to their back teeth.”
“As a politician, Ms Koike has never been enthusiastic about improving women’s social status as that agenda turns off men,” she said.
Koike, 56, who speaks fluent English and Arabic, made her name as an environment minister and an expert on foreign policy, rarely stressing her gender.
In an oblique reference during her brief tenure as defense minister last year, Koike likened herself to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and told a US audience to call her “Madam Sushi” — a joke that fell flat back home.
Koike entered politics in 1992 and has faced criticism for cozying up to those in power at the time.
She was initially a protegee of Ichiro Ozawa, then an LDP heavyweight and now chief of a resurgent opposition — which hopes to defeat the long-dominant but now ailing ruling party in approaching general elections.
After a turbulent political decade, Koike entered the LDP in 2002.
Her latest political patron was reformist prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was popular during his 2001-2006 tenure. Koike now belongs to the largest faction in the LDP, along with Koizumi and many other party heavyweights.
Koike’s shrewdness was illustrated in the 2005 general election when she volunteered to switch her constituency and ran as an “assassin” candidate against an LDP member.
Kanako Otsuji, an opposition member who made an unsuccessful bid last year to be Japan’s first openly lesbian member of parliament, welcomed Koike’s bid as a move to break Japan’s glass ceiling.
“What’s important is that people physically see a woman stand as prime minister in parliament and answer questions from the opposition,” Otsuji said. “It’s a different story on whether she would uphold policies that are good for women.”
Also See: Japan’s rapid succession of prime ministers belies its global role
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
SANCTIONS: Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner called on the EU to tighten sanctions against Rwanda during an event in Brussels The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has accused the EU of “an obvious double standard” for maintaining a minerals deal with Rwanda to supply Europe’s high-tech industries when it deployed a far-wider sanctions regime in response to the war in Ukraine. Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner urged the EU to levy much stronger sanctions against Rwanda, which has fueled the conflict in the eastern DR Congo, describing the bloc’s response to breaches of the DR Congo’s territory as “very timid.” Referencing the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said: “It is an obvious double standard
RSS