Landslide choice for P.M.

Press, 25 November 1982, Page 8

Landslide choice for P.M.

NZPA Tokyo Yasuhiro Nakasone, an outspoken conservative, swept -by three party rivals to capture a primary poll yesterday and. assure, his. • selection as Japan’s sixteenth'-post-war Prime Minister, < "Nakasone, aged 64, who in - ; the past has called for a military build-up, was the landslide choice of members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party in primary balloting to choose a party president, and Prime Minister, to succeed Zenko Suzuki. The president of the proWest party, which has held power since 1955, becomes..: Prime Minister, because of the party’s, majority in the ~ Diet (Parliament). ( With 99 per cent of ballots -j

counted, Mr Nakasone, who is head of the Administrative

Management /Agency, had 557,000 votes, double the count for Toshio Komoto, head of the Economic Planning Agency, Shintaro Abe picked up 80,000 votes, while the science and technology .chief, Ichiro Nakagawa tai’lied 65,000 votes. Unless the losers concede, the 421 party members of the Diet will meet today to pick their new party president from the top three primary vote-getters. Coupled with his primary victory, Mr Nakasone is the hands-down choice because of his support from leaders of the main factions in the conservative party. If all goes according to schedule, a special session of the Diet will be convened tomorrow to choose Mr Na-

kasone as the new Prime Minister. He will begin forming his Cabinet then; ■ ■ Mr Nakasone. succeeds Mr Suzuki, aged 71, who on October. .12 made the surprise announcement that he would step, down for the sake of party unity. Mr Suzuki was the party’s compromise choice for national leader . after Masayoshi Ohira died > in June, 1980. He has been : criticised for making little headway in his campaign to reduce a huge Budget deficit and revive the sluggish economy. Although more hawkish on defence issues and generally more assertive that the unimposing Mr Suzuki, Mr Nakasone is not expected to . bring about serious changes in Japan’s pro-WeSt stance and policy of maintaining a limited defence force.