When he took office last year, Shinzo Abe was the face of a new Japan: young, assertive and on a mission to roll back the legacy of defeat in the Second World War.

The mild-mannered politician was groomed from birth for the job by his elite, conservative family. His grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was member of the war Cabinet and was briefly jailed as a war criminal. He later became Prime Minister and risked his career to build a new alliance with the United States.

Mr Abe similarly talked of taking risks. Last week he said: “Our generation has a responsibility to establish the Japan of the era when today’s children will be adults. We should never shy away from reform, regardless of how strong the resistance may be.”

The media initially likened Mr Abe’s style to that of a US President, with cameras zooming in on how he would walk hand-in-hand with his wife, Akie – unusual in a country where politicians’ spouses rarely appear in public.

With a slogan of building a “beautiful country” proud of its past, Mr Abe quickly got to work on conservative causes such as rewriting the pacifist Constitution imposed by Washington after the war.

He first came to public prominence with his hard stance on North Korea, which has continued throughout his ten months in office. But he has reached out to China and South Korea, whose ties with Japan were tense under his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, due to a dispute linked to war memories.

Even though China has embraced Mr Abe as a welcome change, he has struggled at home to fill the shoes of the flamboyant and popular Mr Koizumi. Mr Koizumi vowed to destroy the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in order to save it. He won a sweeping mandate in 2005 by casting opponents of free-market reforms within the party as the enemy.

In a gentle rebuke to Mr Koizumi, one of his mentors, Mr Abe said that he would rule by consensus. He filled his Cabinet with party stalwarts and even readmitted the lawmakers Mr Koizumi threw out for opposing his postal privatisation plan.

Mr Abe’s nemesis is Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Mr Ozawa, known as “The Destroyer” for his record of splitting up parties through his shrewd dealings, had staked his leadership of the DPJ on winning the elections.

He has switched allegiances repeatedly over the past decade, but he shares many of Mr Abe’s political views, including the creation of a fully fledged defence ministry and the idea of rewriting the pacifist Constitution, making it hard for him to carve out his own niche.

Ten months ago the DPJ’s chances of mounting a political comeback appeared slim after it was crushed in a snap lower house election Mr Koizumi cast as a battle for reform. The DPJ initially struggled to capitalise on Mr Abe’s misfortune. But a series of scandals plaguing him finally provided a boost for the opposition bloc, a little over a year after it turned to Mr Ozawa to try to bring it back from the political wilderness after its own embarrassing scandal.

Mr Ozawa often comes off as brusque and is a self-confessed poor speaker. He once remarked that he enjoyed feeding birds as a hobby because “animals do not betray”. He used to be a heavy smoker and last September he spent ten days ten days in hospital because of fears of a relapse of a heart ailment.

He rose to prominence in 1993 after writing the bestseller Blueprint for a New Japan, which called on Japan to be a “normal country.” He has advocated an end to Japan’s staunch pacifism imposed by the United States after the Second World War and the development of a military on a par with the Asian superpower’s economic might.

He was once a rising star in Mr Abe’s party, but he bolted in 1993, leading to the end of the LDP’s single-handed 38-year reign and the formation of a nonLDP coalition government. After forming a series of small parties, he finally found a home in 2003 with the DPJ, in 1998 in a motley marriage between former socialists and conservatives.

A bright start . . .

September 26, 2006
At 52, Abe becomes Japan’s first Prime Minister to be born after the Second World War
December 21
Abe’s Tax Commission Chairman, Masaaki Homma, resigns amid reports that he is living with a mistress in a government-subsidised flat
December 27
Genichiro Sata, the Minister for Administrative Reform, quits after allegations of financial improprity by his political backers
January 27, 2007
Health Minister Hakuo Yangisawa calls women “birth-giving machines” in a speech, Abe keeps him in the job despite resignation calls
March 5
Abe says there is no proof that women were employed as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers in the Second World War, prompting outrage across Asia
May 28
Scandal-ridden Farm Minister, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, hangs himself
July 3
Fumio Kyuma, Defence Minister, resigns two days after saying that the 1945 US atomic bombing of two Japanese cities “couldn’t be helped”

*Source: Agencies

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge