Chitrabhanu Kadalayil is deputy comment editor at The National
September 28, 2021
There is perhaps no greater symbol to describe what Taro Kono, contender to be the next Japanese prime minister, is up against than the humble fax machine.
As Minister of Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform, Mr Kono’s task over the past year has been to modernise the way Japan’s federal government functions. But one of his more visible crusades, to ban fax machines from government departments and direct employees to embrace email, has met so much pushback that he has had to make a number of exceptions along the way.
That there is such a thing as the “Ministry of Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform” is proof enough that the government desperately needs modernisation. That Mr Kono, a former defence minister, has embraced the onerous job of carrying it out suggests he is a reformist. He certainly portrays the image of an outlier, often speaking his mind on Twitter and at news conferences and talking in chaste English – hardly a feature among Japanese politicians.
But not everyone in the establishment approves of these qualities. Many of them happen to be his fellow members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Shinzo Abe, centre left, is Japan's longest-serving prime minister. Silvia Razgova for The National
On Wednesday, the LDP will vote for a new leader. By virtue of the party having a majority in the lower house of the National Diet, as Japan’s legislature is known, its president will become the country’s prime minister. But almost immediately after taking over from the incumbent, Yoshihide Suga, he or she has to prepare the LDP for a general election, to be held no later than November 28.
Party members in recent weeks have debated whether their next leader should be a popular figure among a Japanese electorate yearning for change, or an establishment type who will refrain from rocking the boat. Mr Kono, some believe, is more of a boat-rocker.
In key opinion polls, he enjoys a healthy lead among the party’s rank-and-file members – up to 47 per cent back his candidacy. Many fellow leaders and their powerful factions are far less enthusiastic, rooting instead for former foreign minister Fumio Kishida, an experienced politician who is nowhere near as popular as Mr Kono is with the people.
Complicating matters for both men is the fact that the other two contenders in the race are women; Japan has never had a woman as prime minister. One of them, Sanae Takaichi, is an acolyte of former prime minister Shinzo Abe and, like him, a fierce nationalist and neoconservative. Unsurprisingly, Ms Takaichi has Mr Abe’s endorsement. Also backing her is Finance Minister Taro Aso, even though the latter heads a faction to which Mr Kono belongs. That’s how much the establishment seems to fear Mr Kono.
Taro Kono is vying for the position of prime minister with Fumio Kishida, Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Noda. AFP
The problem for Mr Kono is how the LDP picks its leader. Up for grabs are 764 votes, divvied up between the party’s 382 lawmakers and the roughly 1 million dues-paying members who make up the other 382 votes. If Mr Kono – or any other candidate – fails to win more than 50 per cent of the vote, there will be a run-off between the top two finishers. In this second round, the lawmakers will play an outsized role, with each getting one vote while ordinary party members will together command just 47 votes – one from each of Japan’s 47 prefectural chapters.
With Mr Kono most likely to top the first round, the party’s leaders will consider rallying behind whoever progresses to the second round with him. At this stage, that candidate could be Mr Kishida, although it would be unwise to count Ms Takaichi out.
Mr Kono, however, also enjoys broad support among the party’s younger lawmakers. These include Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and himself a rising star who once famously pledged to make the fight against climate change “sexy”.
A churn is under way within the LDP. It has rarely faced such a sharp generational divide in its 65-year history. A number of young lawmakers are said to have been instrumental in ending Mr Suga's bid for reelection, given their unhappiness with the way he handled the pandemic and how that would affect their own electoral chances in November. But whether the generational divide is sharp enough to force out an all-powerful “old boys club” and move the party to the left with Mr Kono remains to be seen.
Japan's Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, seen with Italian Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani in Naples in July, is a rising star within the LDP. AFP
A churn is under way within the LDP
On substantive issues, it seems unlikely that the party will make a decisive break from the Abe-Suga years. In fact, all four candidates (including Mr Kono) have recommended only piecemeal changes to policies pursued by the current and previous prime ministers – whether on national defence, Covid-19 or how to deal with a rising China. Beyond calling for “an end to neoliberalism” and offering similar bromides that sound good ahead of a general election, few concrete proposals have been made.
Indeed Mr Kono himself has campaigned more like an establishment figure, softening some of his positions, including on nuclear energy. An ardent supporter of renewable energy, he is now also calling for the reopening of nuclear plants shut down after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster – a position that is popular within the party but deeply unpalatable for the public.
Be that as it may, Japanese politics has entered a phase of uncertainty. The LDP may still be the country's pre-eminent party. But after a decade of stability that coincided with Mr Abe’s record-long stint at the helm, and amid growing opposition unity in recent months, it risks returning to the 1990s and 2000s, when factional bickering and a conveyor-belt of prime ministers weakened the country’s standing in the world and contributed to its economic stagnation.
At a time of great flux in global politics, it will take great leadership on the part of whoever wins this week, well beyond dumping fax machines, to pull the party and country in a new direction.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Labour dispute
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Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
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Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
Name: Colm McLoughlin
Country: Galway, Ireland
Job: Executive vice chairman and chief executive of Dubai Duty Free
Favourite golf course: Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club
