Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday tapped Yoriko Kawaguchi, a former bureaucrat now serving as environment minister, as his new foreign minister after failing to persuade his first choice to take the key post.
"Under the current conditions, she is the most appropriate," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said.
Some analysts questioned, though, whether the appointment would be enough to repair Koizumi's public support after he sacked the popular but controversial Makiko Tanaka on Tuesday.
Koizumi, whose popularity is his main weapon against anti-reform forces in his own ruling party, fired Tanaka to end a feud with senior diplomats and their political backers that had threatened to sidetrack steps to prop up the flagging economy.
Kawaguchi, 61, is admired for her tough stance in global warming treaty talks last year, but Koizumi had been hoping to persuade Sadako Ogata, the highly respected former UN high commissioner for refugees, to take the position.
Early hints of how the sacking of Tanaka will translate into opinion poll numbers are running against the prime minister.
But Koizumi vowed to battle on with his agenda for change.
"Even if my support ratings fall, I will not give up on reform," he said. "I will push ahead with reform even in the face of opposing forces."
The headquarters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been deluged with calls from voters angry over Tanaka's abrupt dismissal.
A mobile-phone survey of 28,320 respondents -- not necessarily all voters -- by TV Tokyo showed that Koizumi's support rate almost halved to 34.7 percent from two weeks ago.
A regular telephone poll of 500 voters by the same broadcaster put support for Koizumi at 55.6 percent -- a huge decline from the 85.6 percent who backed his cabinet in December.
Media have been painting Koizumi as a leader forced to compromise with the very anti-reform forces in his party that he had vowed to fight, so repairing the damage looks tough.
"Kawaguchi may be a capable person for handling day-to-day diplomacy, but that is not what Koizumi wanted and what he needs at this stage," said Shigenori Okazaki, a political analyst at UBS Warburg.
"It won't stop the fall in his approval rating," Okazaki added.
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