Insincere modesty is a convention of Japanese politics, but when Yasuo Fukuda says that he never wanted to be Prime Minister, it is easy to believe him.

Barring an unlikely upset, Mr Fukuda will soon become the leader of the world’s second-richest country, the commander of its armed forces, and George W. Bush’s best friend east of Berlin. But as he travelled around the country this week, campaigning in a party election that he is certain to win, he has come across as a reluctant conscript, hesitantly joining up at a moment of national emergency.

When the prospect first arose, after the collapse last week of the outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Mr Fukuda admitted to being “rather flustered”. Encouraged by a supporter to “express his personality”, he replied: “I have no personality.” This week, speaking of Mr Abe’s fall, he sounded less excited than apocalyptic. “It is a horrifying thing that in politics darkness is just a step away,” he said. “But I have no choice but to go forward.”

To his supporters, this self-effacment is a strength and Mr Fukuda is the man of the hour – a solid and reliable rock of undemonstrative good sense, just what the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) needs after the debacle that was Mr Abe’s year in office. But to many others, Mr Fukuda has none of the obvious qualities of a successful prime minister. They say that he has inadequate experience, no charisma, few ideas and little chance of surviving in the job for more than a few months.

“You need a leader who can encourage and inspire the people with his vision and lead them with his guts,” Taro Aso, the former Foreign Minister who is the second candidate, said, contrasting his own exuberant and cocky manner with that of the solemn Mr Fukuda. “Now is the time for a strong leader, a reliable leader to lead the machine . . . not one who is tempted to be led by that very machine.”

The LDP – and, for the time being, the public - have come to the opposite conclusion. With the party’s biggest factions backing Mr Fukuda in Sunday’s election to succeed Mr Abe as LDP president, his defeat is almost unimaginable. Since the LDP still commands a majority in the Lower House of the Diet, he will then be voted Prime Minister on Tuesday.

In one sense, it is a job that he was born for, as the scion of a political dynasty. His father, Takeo Fukuda, served as both Foreign Minister and Prime Minister during the 1970s. His aunt, brother-in-law and nephew have all been MPs, but Mr Fukuda himself did not follow the conventional path of a second-generation politician.

For 17 years, he served as a conventional salaryman in a respectable but unglamorous oil company. Next he served as his father’s private secretary for 12 years, and it was not until his father died that he took over his constituency at the age of 53.

He has held only one ministerial position, but an important one: Chief Cabinet Secretary, the Government’s spokesman and troubleshooter. He was in the job for 1,289 days, longer than anyone else, and acquired a reputation for reliability, steadiness and dry, self-deprecating and sarcastic wit.

He stood in contrast to his boss, the brilliant and mercurial Junichiro Koizumi, who brandished incendiary slogans, such as “reform Japan, destroy the LDP”. Mr Fukuda’s motto is: “Be serious and do your best every day”.Unlike the passionately pro-American Mr Abe and Mr Koizumi, he also places high priority on good relations with China – and he rejects the idea of praying at the Yasukuni war shrine, which so enraged Japan’s former wartime colonies.

But on economic policy it is much less clear what he stands for. He has promised to address concerns about the income gap, but not specified how.

Even more urgent is the task of uniting his party. The Opposition controls the Upper House, and is determined to force a general election in the Lower next year. If it succeeds, Mr Fukuda could be a very short-lived prime minister, and his hesitation and reluctance now will look, in retrospect, like simple common sense.

Who says you need charisma?

—Hoping to portray the gentle resolution with which he would lead the Conservative Party to victory, Iain Duncan Smith told the 2002 Conservative party conference “Never underestimate the determination of a quiet man”. The speech backfired – every time he rose subsequently to the Despatch Box, Labour backbenchers put their fingers to their lips and theatrically shushed the chamber

—Calvin Coolidge is perhaps more famous now for his taciturn nature than the tireless championing of small government that marked his term as the 30th President of the US. “Silent Cal” was a man of few – but well-chosen – words. Confronted with a society hostess who said, “You must talk to me, Mr President. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you”, he replied: “You lose.”

—Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has twice defeated the flamboyant businessman Silvio Berlusconi to gain office. Mr Berlusconi is known for his playboy lifestyle and outrageous behaviour; Mr Prodi is nicknamed “The Mortadella” after the bland sausage produced in his hometown. He was once described as having “as much charisma as a cup of chamomile tea”

—Just before taking office, Joe Clark told Canadian voters “I’m not the greatest, I’m the best available.” Some would have even doubted that modest phrase. Mr Clark, at 39 the country’s youngest Prime Minister of Canada, held power for less than a year

Sources: Times archive, CBC, Globe and Mail

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found