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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will announce a new cabinet on Monday to try to shore up faltering support a month after his ruling coalition suffered a massive election defeat.
Attention is focused on whether the hawkish Abe, who took office a year ago, will seek to widen support in his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by tapping rivals or reach out to conservative backers from the private sector.
"There is a view that the prime minister is unskilled at personnel matters, and if he fails this time, it will literally be a fatal blow for the administration," said the Nikkei business daily in a weekend editorial.
Financial market players are also seeking clues as to whether Japan will press ahead with market-oriented reforms or back-pedal on efforts to cut its huge public debt after the opposition's successful appeal to voters who felt left behind by the changes.
"Worries have grown that as a result of the upper house election defeat, reforms will stall," the Nikkei added.
Abe's previous cabinet, packed with close allies, was caught up in financial scandals and gaffes, casting doubt on his leadership and contributing to a ballot-box drubbing that gave opposition parties control of parliament's upper house in July.
Another factor in the loss was government mishandling of records of millions of premiums paid into the public pension system by voters already worried about how their rapidly ageing country will care for them in their old age.
Abe has been blamed for focusing too much on his conservative agenda including revising the pacifist constitution and forging a bigger global security role for Japan, while voters worried about bread-and-butter issues such as pensions and health care.
LDP heavyweights backed 52-year-old Abe's decision not to step down, but pressure to resign could mount again if the cabinet reshuffle fails to win public approval.
In what is expected to be nearly a clean sweep, Abe's economics and finance ministers may be replaced.
Japan's first female defence minister, Yuriko Koike, said on Friday she wanted to quit her post.
Outspoken Foreign Minister Taro Aso, a close Abe ally and would-be prime minister who shares many of Abe's conservative policy goals, has accepted an offer to become LDP secretary general, the party's number two post, Japanese media reported on Sunday.
- REUTERS
