Political turmoil is brewing as the governing Liberal Democratic Party gears up to elect its next president April 24. Whoever is elected will replace the unpopular Yoshiro Mori as prime minister.
Since last year, I have been predicting that former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto would be the most powerful contender for the LDP presidency. Things might not work out that way, however.
Hashimoto heads his own faction, by far the largest in the LDP. Thanks to its sheer numerical strength, only those candidates who represented -- or were backed by -- this group or its predecessors have won past presidential elections. The late Prime Ministers Kakuei Tanaka and Noboru Takeshita once headed the group's predecessors.