CAN SHINZO ABE FIND HIS WAY?

Below is my comment on the article of "Can Shinzo Abe Find His Way?", TIME dated on Feb. 26, 2007.

As you illustrated in your article that Shinzo Abe is lost in a big-circled maze with his puzzled look on his face, many Japanese people are also perplexed and discouraged by his poor performance and fighting posture for tough reforms against the rigid bureaucracies and the old regime of the LDP for the last several months. In other words, he seems not to focus on the disparity between the rich and poor, job security, aging population and mounting national debt that people are most concerned, but still excessively on a return to traditional Japanese values and constitutional revisions that they are not.

What is worse is the recent surrounding noise by some of his cabinet members’ slip of the tongue with little respect to their young and inexperienced Prime Minister. The only way for him to reverse this difficult situation and get credit from people is to stand firm by himself, not leaning on the big and old bosses of the LDP circles.　If he begins to hear the voices “Poor Abe!” from the people on and off, that might be the end of the story.