Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe is considering Foreign Minister Taro Aso and senior party colleague Hidenao Nakagawa as candidates for secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party if he becomes its next president, LDP sources have said.
Abe is expected to win his party's Sept. 20 presidential election in a landslide, replacing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as head of the dominant LDP and thus as prime minister later this month.
In the anticipated Abe administration, former labor minister Akira Amari and Senior Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki are expected to become Cabinet members, the sources said.