Uphill battle for Kan to put Hatoyama's wrongs to right
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As prime minister Kan is charged with changing the image of the DPJ which has been largely tainted by the foibles of the former " top two" -- Hatoyama and Ozawa. With upper house elections less than a month away, it's imperative that Kan convinces the public that he represents a new era for the DPJ and for Japanese politics.
Failure to do so and failure to secure a majority in the upper house will, to a degree, inhibit his ability to deal with the biggest public debt burden among industrialized countries with the country's debt expected to balloon to 115 percent of gross domestic product over the next several years, revive a sluggish economy and address an aging, shrinking population -- no small feat for a new prime minister.
However, within his own party and among analysts Kan is seen as the Democrats' best hope for restoring confidence in its ability to govern and delivering a viable roadmap for the future -- an opinion held by Tobias Harris, a political analyst who once worked as an aide to a Democratic lawmaker in Japan.
"He has a record of acting on the basis of his beliefs and not backing down. Those are good signs for a prime minister, and I think those are qualities that Hatoyama did not have," said Harris, author of Observing Japan.
The former ruling Cabinet's approval rate took a battering in the run up to Hatoyama's exit, plunging below 20 percent, and the image of the party became increasingly sullied in the minds of the people, following Hatoyama's backtracking on a campaign pledge to move an unpopular U.S. marine base off the southern island of Okinawa and his turnarounds on other promises such as cash handouts to families with children, which saw the amount halved from the initial proposal and the introduction of toll-free highways, which was put on ice.
"The Japanese people will get behind Kan once he proves he is a worthy leader. People are feeling betrayed by Hatoyama as he was so convincing in his first weeks in office and the country felt, in the same way the U.S. did when Obama won the election, that things in Japan would change," Tetsuyo Shimura, director of affairs at the Asian Exchange Foundation, told Xinhua.
"One of the positives about Kan is that he is a known entity to the people and will prioritize the country's financial and economic problems. To fully endear himself to the people he will also somehow have to convince them that he is here to stay and won't be gone in a few months time like so many ex-prime ministers in Japan, including Hatoyama," said Shimura whose non-governmental organization works to boost understanding and cooperation between countries in the Asia Pacific region.
Kan, as a politician is feisty and proactive, he first came to prominence in the 1990s when as health minister in an era of closed-door politics and backroom dealings by the "old guard," he exposed a government cover-up of HIV-tainted blood products that caused thousands of hemophilia patients to contract the virus that causes AIDS.
In his role as prime minister he has said he will set about undoing 20 years of what he believes is mismanaged economic policies, starting with boosting growth by addressing Japan's unemployment situation and providing more jobs. He is adamant he will revive Japan's ailing economy by introducing new growth strategies and fiscal reform that will see the unification of public finances and the social welfare system, as soon as June.
