Tomorrow, the new leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, Mr Keizo Obuchi, will be proposed to parliament as Prime Minister. He is not popular in the country, he is not popular with the financial markets and he is not regarded as the person who can set the ailing Japanese economy to rights. He lacks charisma; the "cold pizza" is one of the kinder epithets used to describe him. And yet he is certain to be elected Prime Minister.
Mr Obuchi's selection by the LDP was almost assured from the start. But the fact that the party leadership election was contested - and contested vigorously - was unusual. Mr Obuchi, the Foreign Minister, was challenged by Mr Seiroku Kajiyama, a 72-year-old LDP veteran and former cabinet member. The change is that Mr Kajiyama was a member of the faction led by Mr Obuchi who expected a contest from without his faction not within it.
The third candidate fought off by Mr Obuchi last Friday was the Health Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi. But it was Mr Kajiyama who posed the real threat. When he announced his candidature the stock market rallied and the yen rose in the currency markets. Mr Kajiyama spelt out in a blunt fashion not just what he would do to revive the economy but when he would do it. He said he would force all banks to provide fully for their bad loans, even if it drove them into bankruptcy; half the country's banks, he said, should be allowed to fail. He promised increased support for small and medium-sized companies hit by the credit crunch and the creation of one million new jobs in the next three years. Just what the economy requires and just the man to put it in place but the same old factional dynamics held sway and the "cold pizza" was chosen instead - by a comfortable majority.
Mr Obuchi will move into the Prime Minister's residence tomorrow principally because he heads up the largest faction within the LDP. He also has a reputation as a mediator and this will be of use; not for mediation between the social partners but between the various LDP factions, all of which will have strong views on what government policy should be. True, had Mr Kajiyama been elected his policies might not have prevailed within the party but there is a considerable risk that Mr Obuchi, so concerned with mediation and consensus building, may be obliged to muddle his policies to the point where they lose effectiveness.
The task is enormous. The economy is in deep recession. Unemployment is at a record high; industrial output and retail sales are falling, bankruptcies and company failures are soaring. Mr Obuchi must boost confidence and retail sales through tax cuts and government spending. To do this the Government will have to increase its debt greatly but it is simply unavoidable. The banking sector is paying the price for lending fast and loose during the 1980s. It must be reformed completely and opened up to real competition; only then might it become efficient and effective. Mr Obuchi has no experience, or ever expressed an interest, in economics. Yesterday he said that he wished to appoint a former Prime Minister, the 78-year-old Mr Kiichi Miyazawa, as Finance Minister; the two will meet today. Hopefully Mr Miyazawa has been chosen not because he is leader of the LDP's third-largest faction but because he can be relied upon to adopt effective policies and do so quickly.