Japan After the victory

Junichiro Koizumi is certainly a master of symbolism. The Japanese prime minister won an absolute parliamentary majority in the September 11 election by persuading voters that he stood for something new – reform and youth. That was a remarkable accomplishment for a 63-year-old third-generation parliamentarian whose sole campaign issue was a complex ten-year plan for the semi-privatisation of the Post Office. But open-necked shirts and single-issue campaigning – helped by putting attractive women...