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Koizumi tackles
octogenarian MPs The Japanese
prime minister has asked two 80-something MPs not to stand in next month's
elections in an attempt to spruce up the ruling party's reformist
credentials. The move has sparked a row with one of the veterans,
85-year-old former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who said the request
was rude and "a kind of political terrorism". Mr Nakasone accused incumbent Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
of age discrimination. "If they give the impression that old people aren't
needed, then all the old people in the country will oppose them," he
said. Japan's is one of the world's fastest-ageing societies, where
age commands respect. Mr Koizumi, however, wants to give the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) a more youthful complexion. He recently instituted
a policy to encourage younger candidates for the LDP's proportional
representation seats. But the BBC's correspondent in Tokyo, Jonathan Head, says that
as one of the most respected LDP members, Mr Nakasone assumed that even at
the age of 85, he would be standing for parliament next month. The former prime minister is best known for his friendship
with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. "There is nothing more impolite than this... It was as if
he threw a bomb at me all of a sudden," Mr Nakasone told a news
conference. On the other hand, former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, whom
Mr Koizumi also asked to step down, agreed to bow out. Several of the LDP's old guard have already been swept aside
in the last cabinet re-shuffle. Our correspondent says there was a time when the LDP old guard
held all the power in the party but times have changed, and Mr Koizumi has
already broken many party traditions. Octogenarian politicians could be the next tradition to go. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
