Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a political comeback on Wednesday as the elected new head of the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party. This is the first time that a person who has resigned as prime minister has been re-elected as the top leader of a political party. A big question about Mr. Abe is whether he can regain people's trust as a political leader because what happened five years ago is still fresh in their minds.
In the July 2007 Upper House election, in which 242 seats were contested, the Democratic Party of Japan defeated the LDP to become the No. 1 party in the chamber. The LDP won 83 seats to the DPJ's 109 seats. Despite the LDP's defeat, Mr. Abe refused to take responsibility and continued to serve as the LDP head and prime minister. On Sept. 12, 2007, the very day of the start of questioning by party representatives in Diet plenary sessions, he suddenly resigned as prime minister.
After that, the LDP went downhill and was badly defeated in the August 2009 Lower House election, losing power to the DPJ. Has Mr. Abe reflected on why the LDP lost out as the ruling party? Past LDP administrations did not offer effective policy measures to solve problems related to the weakening of the nation's middle class and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, which were exacerbated by the neoliberal policies under the LDP administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. As a former Koizumi Cabinet member and as a former prime minister, Mr. Abe shares responsibility for the damage caused by those policies.