JAPAN’S RULING and opposition party leaders clashed in a pre-election debate yesterday, with Taro Aso, prime minister and Liberal Democratic party (LDP) chief, promising to “protect” the nation from the fires of war and Yukio Hatoyama, head of the Democratic party (DPJ), offering voters Obamaesque “change”.
The televised debate, which neither leader dominated and in which both stuck to their party’s chosen election themes, came ahead of the formal launch of campaigning next week for the August 30th general election, which opinion polls suggest could spell the end of the LDP’s long rule over the world’s second largest economy. Mr Aso appealed to voters to spend August pondering their ballot choice and told them to remember how Tokyo had burned in the same month of 1945. “I and the LDP will protect Japan,” he said.
The LDP sees security as one of its strongest suits in the campaign, given a longstanding lack of clarity about the foreign policy intentions of the often fractious DPJ.
In reply, Mr Hatoyama used the English word “change” to sum up the DPJ’s pitch, an echo of US president Barack Obama’s buzzword designed to appeal to widespread dissatisfaction among Japanese voters with the political status quo.