Yasuo Fukuda, a former salaryman who has insisted that he never wanted to lead his country, was chosen yesterday as the Prime Minister-elect of Japan, as his predecessor apologised from his hospital bed for plunging the country into a political crisis.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party chose Mr Fukuda, 71, as president over his rival, the former Foreign Minister, Taro Aso, 67, a result that wrests the party leadership from the conservative Right to the centre-Left of the party.

Unlike the nationalistic Mr Aso and the man he replaces, Shinzo Abe, Mr Fukuda has a reputation for being a conciliatory moderate, anxious to avoid offending Asian neighbours.

“I’m not highly educated or talented, and I don’t have much experience,” Mr Fukuda, who will be elected formally as Prime Minister tomorrow by Japan’s Diet, said. “But despite that, you have chosen me as party president. I am moved . . . I want to revitalise the LDP and for it to become a party that powerfully implements policies by winning public confidence.”

Confidence has been gravely lacking since the sudden resignation of Mr Abe a week and a half ago, after a physical and mental collapse. Despite lying in a Tokyo hospital attached to a drip, Mr Abe, 53, technically remains Prime Minister until tomorrow. “I want to apologise for creating a political vacuum by retiring from the post as the Prime Minister in an important time,” he said in a letter yesterday, after casting an absentee ballot.

Mr Fukuda won by 330 votes to 197 after the LDP’s biggest factions decided that the party needed stability and reliability rather than Mr Aso’s unpredictable charm. He now faces a much-harder struggle, piloting legislation through a Diet whose Upper House is controlled by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

The Government is attempting to renew an antiterrorism law that allows Japanese naval ships to supply fuel to American and Pakistani allies supporting the war in Afghanistan. The DPJ, and many voters, oppose the Bill and its majority in the Upper House allows them to disrupt its passage.

The leader of the DPJ, Ichiro Ozawa, has staked his reputation on bringing home the refuelling ships. The US Ambassador to Tokyo, Thomas Schieffer, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, made personal appeals to him to drop his opposition but, if anything, these public efforts to bend his will have made it harder for him to change his position.

“It is not desirable to make an impression that Japan has withdrawn from the mission,” Mr Fukuda said. “We may send a wrong message to the international community if we fail to express our intentions promptly.”

If he cannot negotiate a compromise, Mr Fukuda will come under pressure to call a risky Lower House election. “A Cabinet that does not have the public’s trust will soon collapse,” Yukio Hatoyama, of the DPJ, said yesterday. “[The LDP] has treated people’s lives lightly, and tossing around power within the party does not reflect the public will.”

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