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Aso administration stumbles…

New Japanese prime minister Taro Aso received "a blow" to his Liberal Democratic Party leadership just four days after he took over the job, says Linda Sieg for Reuters. The headache came when his transport minister Nariaki Nakayama resigned after a "verbal gaffe" that occurred when he called Japan's largest teachers' union a "cancer in the educational system." Nakayama, a former education minister, "was well-known for his gaffes," says the Asahi Shimbun. In his first policy address to both houses of parliament, Aso "took a strongly oppositional stance" against the Democratic Party of Japan, says the Yomiuri Shimbun, raising questions about the DPJ's position on "key policy issues" like the 2008 supplementary budget and the old age medical insurance system. Aso had planned to dissolve the lower house and call early elections, but delayed that to deal with the global financial crisis, it adds.

...as king Koizumi steps down

Aso's woes come at the same time as the ruling LDP loses its most beloved politician. Former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, "known for his flamboyant style,""love of Elvis Presley," and "long silver hair," has decided to leave politics, says The Associated Press. Instead, his 27-year-old son Shinjiro will run for Koizumi's seat when the next election is held, reports Kyodo News. Praising his "plain and incisive talk," the Asahi Shimbun compared him to a Don Quixote who "attacked" his own LDP and had a willingness to "put his political life on the line to achieve his goals." Koizumi was an "unconventional politician who responded to the public's longing for change." He was "full of surprises" and had "a strong will," says Kosuke Takahashi in Asia Times Online. After failing to block Aso's bid to become prime minister by promoting Yuriko Koike, Japan's first female politican to run for the job, "Koizumi may have recognized that he's no longer a leader, that he is not in step with the times," writes Takahashi. With the popular Koizumi stepping down, the fragile LDP could face "a major setback" in the polls

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