Close the widening economic gap between urban and rural areas. Plainly put, this is the goal of Hiroya Masuda, the newly appointed internal affairs minister overseeing local government policies.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2007/nn20070901f1a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='381'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Hiroya Masuda </B></FONT></TD> </TR> <TABLE> </PHOTO> <PARAGRAPH>Though it has its roots in the five-year administration of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the Liberal Democratic Party's crushing defeat in the July Upper House election has added urgency to this directive.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Faced with mounting dissatisfaction among rural voters, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has turned to Masuda, the reform-minded former governor of Iwate Prefecture, to win back the faithful in the LDP's traditional strongholds.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>One of just two nonpoliticians in the Cabinet, Masuda ended 12 years in office as Iwate's governor in April. Having pledged to the public to serve only up to three terms, Masuda kept his word and did not run again.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'I took the –

post to be a bridge between the central and local governments," Masuda said in a recent interview.

The 55-year-old former Construction Ministry bureaucrat is also state minister in charge of decentralization.

To this end, he has pushed for reviewing the cookie-cutter way that the central government allocates subsidies to local authorities.

"It denies the uniqueness of local governments," Masuda said. "It makes communities similar to one another."