Japanese Trade Minister Gets a Challenger in Party Race
TOKYO — A former postal minister Sunday officially challenged Ryutaro Hashimoto, Japan’s hard-line minister of international trade and industry, for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Junichiro Koizumi filed his challenge mainly to ensure that the party, which is the dominant member of the coalition government of Socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, carries out a policy debate before the Sept. 22 election for the party presidency.
In a joint news conference, however, the two politicians declared themselves at odds on only one major policy: the privatization of the postal service, which Koizumi supports and Hashimoto opposes.
Hashimoto, who won praise here for refusing to bow to U.S. demands for numerical quotas in an auto trade agreement hammered out earlier this year, was virtually assured of succeeding Foreign Minister Yohei Kono as the head of Japan’s largest political party when Kono bowed out of the race last month.
Should the Liberal Democrats win a majority in the next lower house election, their leader would become prime minister.
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