Mr Junichiro Koizumi's outright victory in the Japanese Liberal Democrat Party's presidential contest assures his election as the country's next prime minister to succeed Mr Yoshio Mori. It is a genuinely surprising result, the product of a grassroots rebellion in the LDP, where Mr Koizumi secured a sweeping majority of local party chapters, based on a radical programme to restructure the Japanese economy. All eyes will now be on his cabinet appointments to see if he has had to compromise so much on policy with party factions as to prevent him carrying out his programme.
There is a sense of desperation coming through this result, as well as an affirmation of grassroots democracy quite new in the LDP. The party has been mired in factionalism and corruption scandals that seem to reflect a wider malaise in Japanese society. The LDP now faces an important test in July's upper house parliamentary elections. Despite its dominance of Japan's three-party coalition, the LDP fears losing power after its virtually uninterrupted involvement in government since the mid-1950s.
Mr Koizumi's appeal in these circumstances is relatively easy to understand. It is based on his personality and policies. A bohemian lifestyle and an unusual candour about LDP shortcomings has tuned him into a wider public mood of disenchantment with the backroom political culture for which the party is notorious. That disenchantment has shown up at regional and local levels all over Japan, reflecting social change and shifting values. In terms of policy, Mr Koizumi also has appeal. He supports faster deregulation, privatisation of the huge post-office savings system, radical moves to clear out bad bank loans, a curb on high state indebtedness and an end to factionalism within the LDP itself.
Such policies have made Mr Koizumi many enemies within the party. His political skills will be sorely tested as he seeks to deliver on his undertakings in coming months. He proposes to reverse the dominant policy orientation of the last decade which has seen public indebtedness soar with pork-barrel expenditure to insulate regions from the effects of the recession that followed the collapse of the 1980s bubble economy. Ultra-cautious policies towards deregulation and an instinct to protect the banking system from collapse, have contributed to Japan's floundering economy in the 1990s.
The Japanese stock exchange rallied on news of Mr Koizumi's victory; but if he implements his programme in full, the economy would probably go into a short sharp recession. That would not be good news for the rest of the world, given the uncertain economic outlook in the US and Europe. It very much remains to be seen whether Mr Koizumi's election is a flash in the pan or heralds a long-term shift in Japan's politics.