Mr. Shinzo Abe was chosen as the nation's new prime minister by the Diet Tuesday and immediately formed his Cabinet. Although Mr. Abe is the first prime minister to have been born after World War II, and, at 52, is the youngest prime minister in the postwar period, his Cabinet lineup does not contain any surprises.
All Cabinet members are politicians personally or ideologically close to him, and he has rewarded those who contributed to his election as president of the Liberal Democratic Party. Most members either belong to factions that supported Mr. Abe in the LDP race or personally helped him to win the party election even though they belong to factions that let their members vote freely in the party race.
The Abe Cabinet has been formed as the nation faces difficult issues at home and abroad. Domestically, the government must carry out financial reconstruction and tax reforms. It must make the social security system efficient while enhancing people's trust in it. It must rectify the gap between the rich and the poor, which many people feel has widened under the deregulation politics of Mr. Abe's predecessor, Mr. Junichiro Koizumi.