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Next Japan PM talks of 'fraternity' and love

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-30 20:38

WEALTHY FAMILY

In the lead up to the general election, Hatoyama was more popular than Prime Minister Taro Aso in opinion polls, although many voters said they saw neither as suitable to be premier.

"His best quality is that he's not Aso," said Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus.

"He's prominent, but he doesn't leave a strong impression."

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Hatoyama, once nicknamed "the alien" for his unusual eyes, comes from a wealthy family of industrialists and politicians. His mother's father founded Bridgestone Corp, one of the world's largest tyre makers. His grandfather was a former prime minister.

When media reported in June that some donations to Hatoyama's political fund had been attributed to people who were dead, he denied any illegality, saying that an aide had mislabelled cash from his own fortune that he had handed over for safe keeping.

The son of a former foreign minister and holder of a doctorate in engineering from Stanford University, Hatoyama left the LDP in 1993 along with dozens of other party rebels.

The defections touched off a chain reaction that resulted in the ousting of the long-ruling conservative party by a reformist, multi-party coalition that lasted just 10 months.

In 1998 he helped establish the Democratic Party and served as leader before resigning in 2002.

Hatoyama's platform says his party would wrest power from bureaucrats as a way to cut wasteful expenditure and rebuild faith in Japan's creaking national pension scheme.

He has has also criticised the LDP for being too close to the United States in its security and diplomatic policies.

"I am worried about the current government because it does everything the United States says, even when such action is not recognised by the United Nations," Hatoyama said earlier this year, an apparent reference to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that went ahead without backing from the world body.

Hatoyama is married to a former musical actress who has also published several cookbooks. He has one son.

Critics have sometimes accused him of being wishy-washy.

A question-and-answer section on his official website once posed the query: "What would you most like to do right now?"

His answer: "Take a nap."

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