Japan’s new prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, was described by one of his fellow Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members of parliament as looking “like one of those homeless guys in the park”. It is a remark that may come back to haunt the country, especially since Koizumi’s warm embrace of economic reform policies is likely to increase Japan’s unemployment rate, which is already at record high levels of around 5%.
No matter: only a few days after Koizumi’s new government unveiled a painful blueprint to reform the economy, at an immediate cost of up to 200,000 jobs through getting rid of banks’ bad debts, the LDP was the main gainer in key municipal elections in Tokyo.
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