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Politics
Is This the Anti-Kandidate?
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Banri Kaieda
Tokyo -- There are growing indications that incumbent Prime Minister Naoto Kan's main rival for the DPJ party presidency in September will be five-term House of Representatives member Banri Kaieda.
Kaieda, 61, currently serves as chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Affairs and a member of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's grouping. He is also known to be close to former DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa.
Although he is not a nationally-known figure, Kaieda may prove to be a rather formidable opponent for Prime Minister Kan in light of the fact that the premier has been seriously weakened by the DPJ's poor performance in last month's House of Councillors election.
If Kaieda gains the full support of the Hatoyama group, to which he belongs, as well as the Ozawa machine, he could win.
Kaieda, who has a background as an economist, is expected to run against Kan on an economic platform. He recently observed to reporters, "Prime Minister Kan's economic policies are insufficient."
Kaieda is a native of Tokyo and a graduate of Keio University who was first elected to the lower house in 1993 as a candidate of Morihiro Hosokawa's Japan New Party. In 1996, he became a founding member of the DPJ.
In the current decade, he has struggled against Kaoru Yosano to hold the Tokyo 1st District seat, failing in the Koizumi postal election of 2005 and successfully making his comeback in 2009.
The DPJ presidential elections are now scheduled for September 14.
PanOrient News
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