Surpassing many people’s expectations — perhaps even his own — Shigeru Ishiba bested eight other candidates in the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election last week before he was sworn in as prime minister on Tuesday.
And since taking office, he is already being criticized by the left and the right for backtracking on previous statements involving the timing of the Lower House election as well as his weak base within the party.
The first time I met Ishiba was in the 1980s, when I was an official in the National Security and U.S. Status of Forces Agreement divisions at the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau. At a meeting of the LDP's Defense Committee, Ishiba stood out, as he was the only legislator who brought a complete set of Japanese law books with him.
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