Naoto Kan new Japan PM

Japan's parliament installed Naoto Kan as prime minister yesterday, handing the political veteran the immediate task of rallying his party and reclaiming its mandate for change before elections next month.
Kan succeeds Yukio Hatoyama, who stepped down Wednesday after squandering the public's high hopes with broken campaign promises and financial scandals.
"My task is to rebuild this nation," said Kan, who was Hatoyama's finance minister.
The 63-year-old with a reputation for confronting Japan's powerful bureaucrats must contend with a daunting list of problems.
Kan's first task will be to form a Cabinet. He said he would announce the members "early next week" after thinking about the posts over the weekend.
"We will work together as one in the face of the tough political situation and the upcoming upper house elections and fight together unified," he told party members. "Our first priority is to regain the trust of the people."
Kan, the country's sixth prime minister in four years, pledged to confront problems linking money and politics. He also stressed the need for fiscal discipline while trying to spur economic growth.
Chosen Friday morning as new chief of the Democratic Party of Japan, Kan was voted into office a few hours later by the lower house, the more powerful chamber of Japan's parliament.
Kan received 313 votes out of 477, with Liberal Democratic Party head Sadakazu Tanigaki getting 116. The rest went to candidates of smaller parties. The upper house approved Kan immediately afterward.
While his political philosophy is hard to neatly categorise, analysts and fellow lawmakers agree that his personal traits and background as a civic activist and proactive Cabinet minister set him apart from Hatoyama.
"He has a record of acting on the basis of his beliefs and not backing down," said Tobias Harris, a political analyst who once worked as an aide to a Democratic lawmaker in Japan. "Those are good signs for a prime minister, and I think those are qualities that Hatoyama did not have."
With his ordinary upbringing, Kan represents a break with the past several prime ministers, including Hatoyama, whose fathers or grandfathers served as prime ministers. The son of a businessman, Kan graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology's science department.
He began his political career as a civic activist in the 1970s and ran for office three times before winning a lower house seat in 1980 with the now-defunct Socialist Democratic Federation.
Kan, along with Hatoyama, was one of several members in 1996 to found what eventually became the Democratic Party of Japan.
"I grew up in a typical Japanese salaryman's family," Kan said Thursday. "I've had no special connections. If I can take on a major role starting from such an ordinary background, that would be a very positive thing for Japanese politics."
In a written candidate's statement yesterday, Kan identified economic recovery as the biggest challenge facing Japan, whose economy will almost certainly be overtaken in size by China this year. While exports and factory output are rising, unemployment and deflation are worsening.
"I will tackle and pull Japan out of deflation through comprehensive measures from the government and the Bank of Japan," he said in the statement.
He pledged to resume fiscal reforms and work toward sustainable finances, including possible tax reform, to ensure a strong social security system for Japan's aging population.
On foreign policy, Kan described the relationship with the US as vital, but stressed the importance of Asian neighbours.
"With the US-Japan alliance the cornerstone of our diplomacy, we must also work for the prosperity of the Asian region," he said.
To be sure, he has made his share of political missteps. Nicknamed "Irritable Kan," he is known for his fiery temper. He stepped down as head of his party in 2004 after admitting he failed to make pension payments while he was health minister.
And some analysts question whether Kan can salvage public support for his party or enact real change.
"It's a big mistake to think you can win the elections just by changing the cover of the book," said Yasunori Sone, a political science professor at Keio University. "It's unclear what he is keeping of Hatoyama's policies and what he is hoping to change."