Noda to become Japan's new PM after winning DPJ election+

TOKYO, Aug. 29 Kyodo -
Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda will become Japan's new prime minister, the sixth in five years, after beating industry minister Banri Kaieda in a runoff Monday in the Democratic Party of Japan's presidential election.
The 54-year-old Noda, a fiscal hawk, gained 215 of the DPJ lawmakers' votes to Kaieda's 177, having trailed the industry chief in the first round of voting. He is likely to continue many of the policies pursued by his predecessor, Naoto Kan, who is expected to be replaced as prime minister Tuesday.
''First, I will deal with the situation that can be described as a national crisis, including the nuclear accident, disaster recovery and reconstruction, and difficult economic conditions,'' Noda told a news conference after he was chosen as the DPJ's third president since it swept to power two years ago.
''I will solve these issues one by one and aim for a politics that works'' by promoting cooperation between the DPJ and opposition parties, which dominate the upper house of parliament, Noda said.
The DPJ election, with a record five contenders, was held after Kan confirmed his resignation last Friday amid criticism of his leadership following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeastern region and triggered the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Noda, who has held the finance post since June 2010 when he took over from Kan, supports raising taxes to combat Japan's ballooning debt, currently twice the size of the country's gross domestic product, and to finance the huge additional costs of the largest reconstruction work since the years after World War II.
In the initial round, Kaieda, 62, backed by DPJ power broker Ichiro Ozawa and his allies, won 143 votes, the highest proportion among the 398 DPJ lawmakers who were the only ones eligible to take part in the leadership election, followed by Noda, with 102 votes.
As none of the five candidates won an outright majority in the first round, Noda and Kaieda immediately squared off.
The three other candidates were former Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, 49, farm minister Michihiko Kano, 69, and former transport minister Sumio Mabuchi, 51, who gained 74, 52 and 24 votes respectively.
Maehara, who could have become Japan's youngest postwar prime minister, was touted by media polls as the public's favorite.
Noda will serve out Kan's term as head of the DPJ until September next year and will be named as Japan's new prime minister Tuesday afternoon in parliament, as the party controls the more powerful House of Representatives.
After the victory, Noda pledged to strengthen unity within the DPJ, which has long been beset by internal divisions, mainly between pro- and anti-Ozawa lawmakers.
Noda said he will pick new DPJ executives and his Cabinet members in the coming days with party unity in mind.
During the race for the party's top post, all the candidates said pulling Japan out of two decades of economic stagnation is a matter of the highest priority and this cannot be done without speedy reconstruction following the March disaster.
Noda quickly met with the heads of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party after the election, and agreed with them that the DPJ and the two major opposition parties would work closely on the rebuilding of the devastated northeastern region.
Noda also confirmed with the People's New Party, the DPJ's junior coalition partner, that the alliance would be maintained.
Whether to stick to the party's policy pledges in the 2009 general election through which it came to power, how to generate funds for reconstruction efforts and how to avoid legislative gridlock in the current divided Diet were major issues.
Unlike Kaieda, Noda said that he will ''abide in good faith with an agreement'' made by the DPJ with the two major opposition parties on reviewing major DPJ pledges, including monthly child allowances and toll-free expressways.
Noda's diplomatic skills are still unknown. As with other candidates, he said the Japan-U.S. alliance is the cornerstone of Tokyo's foreign policy.
But Japan's ties with neighboring countries, especially with China and South Korea, may have some twists as Noda believes Japan's wartime leaders, convicted by an Allied tribunal at the end of World War II, were not in fact war criminals.
Noda has also voiced concerns over China's military buildup and its growing assertiveness in territorial disputes.
Despite some differences the leadership contest focused, once again, on the struggle for power within the DPJ rather than policy.
The battle was between champions and adversaries of Ozawa, the head of the largest party faction who is known as the ''shadow shogun'' for his prowess in backroom dealing.
Ozawa was not eligible to vote in the election as his party membership has been suspended due to a political funds scandal. But he still holds sway over more than 100 DPJ parliamentarians.
Ozawa and his allies have criticized the way in which Kan has run the party and the government since he took the helm in June last year.
In particular, they say many of Kan's policies have gone against the party's 2009 pledges that were based on wresting control of policymaking from the powerful bureaucracy, cutting wasteful spending and putting more cash into people's pockets.
==Kyodo