Japan’s once-formidable Liberal Democrats pick yet another uninspiring leader

ANYONE hoping for a new era of vigorous two-party politics in Japan will be disappointed by the choice of Sadakazu Tanigaki to head the vanquished Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). If anything, the 64-year-old former finance minister is even more mild-mannered than Yukio Hatoyama, the prime minister he is supposed to battle on the parliamentary stage.

Mr Tanigaki won 300 of the 499 votes cast in the LDP’s internal election on Monday September 28th. The election was a chance for the party to show that it intends to rebuild itself after losing power a month ago for only the second time in 54 years. But by picking Mr Tanigaki over younger guns with ambitions to shake up the party’s gerontocracy, the LDP shows that its eyes are still fixed on the past—and has not learned many lessons from defeat. “We need to return to the LDP’s origins—that politics is for the people,” Mr Tanigaki said. …