TOKYO, Sept 17 (AFP): A majority of lawmakers from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) support moderate party veteran Yasuo Fukuda as the country's next prime minister, a newspaper poll showed Monday.
Fukuda, 71, has been running against outspoken former foreign minister Taro Aso, 66, in next Sunday's election for the party's presidency vacated by Shinzo Abe who announced his resignation last Wednesday.
The LDP presidency is customarily twinned with the country's premiership due to the party's dominance in the key lower house of parliament.
Abe resigned as prime minister after about a year in office hit by scandals involving his cabinet ministers and sagging popularity.
The major daily Yomiuri Shimbun said that 339 of the 387 LDP lawmakers in both houses of parliament had responded to a poll which it had conducted over the weekend.
Of the total LDP MPs, 213 or 55 percent supported Fukuda, against 45 or 12 percent for Aso, the daily said.
The 387 parliament members and 141 representatives from regional chapters will be eligible to vote in the party leadership election.
In a separate telephone poll by the newspaper, 58 percent of the 1,046 respondents supported Fukuda against 22 percent for Aso.
Fukuda, a former chief cabinet secretary, is an old-school politician, adept in the country's traditional closed-door consensus building between the ruling party's various factions.
Fukuda supported by majority of ruling party MPs: poll
FE Team | Published: September 18, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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