New LDP head Takaichi picks veterans as party execs, focusing on steadiness
TOKYO, Oct. 7 Kyodo - Sanae Takaichi, the new chief of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on Tuesday appointed seasoned lawmakers as the party's top executives, with a focus on keeping steady hands amid a hazy political outlook under a minority government.
The executive lineup, launched before she is set to become prime minister, includes former Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki, 72, as the party's No. 2 position of secretary general, and former Prime Minister Taro Aso, 85, who backed Takaichi in the LDP leadership election on Saturday, as vice president.
Takaichi also named former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi, 50, who was one of the four candidates who lost in the presidential contest, as the new chief policy maker.
Haruko Arimura, 55, former minister in charge of women's empowerment, was picked to head the decision-making General Council, while Keiji Furuya, 72, who once led Japan's National Public Safety Commission, was tapped as election strategy chief.
"We will overcome this difficult situation and live up to people's expectations by unifying the party," Suzuki told a joint press conference with other new party officials, given the split of the LDP lawmakers' vote in the presidential election.
In what is seen as a controversial appointment, former industry minister Koichi Hagiuda, 62, who was one of the LDP lawmakers implicated in a high-profile political slush funds scandal, takes up the post of executive acting secretary general to assist Suzuki.
Takaichi, a 64-year-old former internal affairs minister who is known as a staunch conservative, is on course to be elected as Japan's first female prime minister at an extraordinary parliamentary session later this month to replace Shigeru Ishiba, her predecessor as LDP chief.
The new party leadership will be tasked with pursuing policy consultations with opposition forces, as the LDP-led coalition with its junior partner, the Komeito party, has lost its majority in both parliament chambers following the past two national elections under Ishiba.
Opposition forces such as the Japan Innovation Party and the Democratic Party for the People are widely seen as the LDP's potential coalition partners as they are similarly conservative parties.
Concerns within Komeito, however, are stirring over expanding the ruling bloc.
"No matter what kind of form a new coalition would take, its basis would be the current coalition with Komeito," Suzuki said, adding that the LDP will make efforts to dispel Komeito's concerns through careful explanation.
Suzuki, former head of the General Council, belongs to an intraparty faction led by Aso, his brother-in-law who remains influential in the LDP. Aso's group is the only faction that has not disbanded despite the political funds scandal.
==Kyodo
