Abe It Is

I feel obligated to post that Abe Shinzo did indeed win the LDP election. No surprise, but here’s the New York Times story by Onishi.

TOKYO, Sept. 20 — Shinzo Abe, the nationalist politician who has pledged to revise Japan’s pacifist Constitution, won the leadership of the governing party today, ensuring that he will become Japan’s next prime minister.Mr. Abe, who will turn 52 Thursday, secured two-thirds of the votes in balloting for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japanese politics for decades. Because the party controls the lower house of parliament, which chooses the prime minister, Mr. Abe is now certain to succeed the retiring prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, when the parliament meets Sept. 26.