By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Tokyo
Almost exactly a year to the day after it last convened to select a new leader, Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party is doing it again.
Their last leader, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, resigned abruptly at the beginning of September, complaining that he could no longer achieve what he wanted because of deadlock in the parliament where the opposition controls the upper house.
That was the second time in a row an LDP leader had Earthquake hits off Japan's coast ...
Turkey's ruling party defends itself in court ... stepped down, without any prior warning, admitting that he could not continue in the job.
His predecessor Shinzo Abe had resigned less than a year before that.
Now members of parliament and party chapters in the Liberal Democratic Party are to choose their third leader in two years.
For the third time in a row Japan's new leader will be selected by politicians, not by the voters.
Whoever is chosen will become prime minister by virtue of the ruling coalition's majority in the lower house of parliament.
Change needed
Tokiko Terada, a pensioner who lives in Tokyo, is frustrated.
"I can't stand it," she says. "We can't choose the prime minister again. The MPs get to choose but we can't do anything!"
The LDP has run Japan, almost without a break, since Mrs Terada was about the same age as her granddaughter Yuki is now.
Yuki Terada, a student in her twenties, shares her grandmother's sentiments.
"Even though all the candidates are on TV saying 'OK we are doing it for the people, we need change,' we are not involved. We can only watch it."
Yuki's mother Michiko Terada was born in 1956, the year after the LDP first took power.
She is concerned that the gap between the rich and the poor in Japan is getting wider, and feels the governing party isn't doing enough about it.
"There are many people who don't like it," she says But Japanese people don't often speak up. The people who are suffering cannot be heard."
Flat-lining polls
These kind of opinions are not unusual here. Japan is a rich country. Life is good for many people here. But the governing LDP is deeply unpopular.
The approval ratings for Yasuo Fukuda's administration looked anaemic at best over the last few months - at times they flat-lined.
The frontrunner in the race for the party leadership, Taro Aso, is the man MPs hope will bring some vigour back into the party.
He is a former foreign minister, a political blueblood, a grandson of a former prime minister.
He is often dubbed a "right winger". Certainly, he is on the conservative wing of what is a very conservative party and he has in the past made ill-judged comments that have upset Japan's neighbours.
But those who know him say he is an experienced politician who is unlikely to allow his passion to get the best of him, once he secures the job he has tried, and failed to secure three times already.
"I believe that he has a very strategic mind," says LDP MP Ichita Yamamoto.
"As far as policy to China is concerned there is only one option - strategic mutual 'win win' situation. Aso will take that approach as Prime Minister."
But Mr Yamamoto has concerns about Mr Aso's economic policy.
He fears that the candidates declaration that he will try to win back the support of the party's traditional supporters in rural areas will mean a return to the bad old ways of the LDP.
"I'm a bit worried that Mr Aso will increase public spending in an effort to stimulate the economy" he explains.
"That kind of 'pork barrel' spending has been shown to damage the economy in the long run."
Election time?
Monday will see a vote of governing party MPs from the lower and upper houses of parliament to choose their new boss.
Local party organizations will also be allocated votes in the ballot.
If none of the five candidates receives more than half the votes, there will be a run-off between the top two candidates although few expect this will be needed.
Once the winner is declared parliament, will elect the new prime minister on Wednesday.
Then the question will be: how long will the new administration last?
It is likely the new prime minister will go to the country within weeks, to give voters like the Terada family what they are asking for - an opportunity to have their say in who should run Japan.
(BBC)
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