Cablegate: It's Official; Abe Wins

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O 200900Z SEP 06
FM AMEMBASSY TOKYO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6554
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 4237
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL PRIORITY 0367
RUEHFK/AMCONSUL FUKUOKA PRIORITY 8128
RUEHNAG/AMCONSUL NAGOYA PRIORITY 7890
RUEHNH/AMCONSUL NAHA PRIORITY 0682
RUEHOK/AMCONSUL OSAKA KOBE PRIORITY 1482
RUEHKSO/AMCONSUL SAPPORO PRIORITY 9219
RHMFIUU/COMUSJAPAN YOKOTA AB JA PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/DISA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/TREASURY DEPT WASHDC PRIORITY
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RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
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UNCLAS TOKYO 005408

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV JA
SUBJECT: IT'S OFFICIAL; ABE WINS

REF: TOKYO 05362

1. (U) Summary. As expected, Shinzo Abe won a decisive
victory in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) election
on September 20, defeating Foreign Minister Taro Aso and
Finance Minister Sadokazu Tanigaki in a contest that was
never really close. He became the 21st LDP president
immediately upon the resignation of the current president,
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, later in the day. Abe will
succeed Koizumi as Prime Minister on September 26. End
summary.

2. (U) Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, 51, became the
youngest Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president in history
on September 20, taking 66 percent of the vote in an election
that was his to lose from the start. He needed to gain only
a simple majority of the votes to win outright and avoid a
runoff. Abe will succeed Koizumi as prime minister on
September 26, when the current cabinet resigns en masse on
the opening day of the extraordinary Diet session. He is
expected to announce his choices for party executive posts on
September 25, and his new cabinet lineup on September 26.
Abe, who will take office as the first prime minister born
after the end of World War II, is eligible to serve two
three-year terms. In brief remarks, he promised to "carry on
the torch of reform,"

3. (U) Diet members began voting at 1400 local time,
according to an Embassy Tokyo contact in the LDP's election
office. The prefectural chapters began counting their
ballots earlier in the day; timing the entry of the results
into a database maintained at the national headquarters
office in Tokyo to coincide with the Diet member voting. A
general meeting of party members later in the afternoon
accepted the resignations of Koizumi and other party
executives from their party posts. The other outgoing
executive members were Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe,
General Affairs Council Chairman Fumio Kyuma, and Policy
Affairs Research Council Chairman Hidenao Nakagawa.

4. (U) The candidates competed for a total of 703 votes; 403
from LDP Diet members and 300 allocated to the LDP's
prefectural chapters on a proportional basis (reftel). One
Diet member vote was invalidated during the counting. The
voting breakdown followed recent polling trends fairly
closely:

Diet Prefectures Total Percent
Abe 267 197 464 66.1
Aso 69 67 136 19.4
Tanigaki 66 36 102 14.5
Total 402 300 702 100.0

5. (SBU) Comment. Aso and Tanigaki had been neck-and-neck
in polls over the past few months, but Aso was expected to
finish slightly stronger. According to NHK News, the
campaign to deny Abe an even more lopsided victory seems to
have gained some traction in recent weeks, leading Aso and
Tanigaki to garner more votes than originally anticipated.
Of the two, Tanigaki was generally regarded to have been a
more vocal opponent of Abe's policy line, and a stronger
showing might have been seen as a bell-weather of opposition
to Abe within the party. His third place finish gives Abe a
much clearer mandate. Voter turnout among LDP members in the
prefectural chapters was 61.5 percent, down about 8 percent
from the last LDP election three years ago, likely reflecting
Abe's insurmountable lead.
SCHIEFFER

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