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.”
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