Still, Mr Fukuda has pulled off a Koizumi-like feat: with Mr Ozawa's help, he has positioned himself as a crusader against his own party's forces of reaction.
As was pointed out recently in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun by Koizumi-government economics minister Takenaka Heizo, what is missing in the proposal is any adjustment in pension benefits or other measures to manage its costs.
Yet in Nishi-Koizumi in Gunma prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a town dominated by a Sanyo electronics plant, the picture is different.
St Petersburg is the first leg of Mr Koizumi's seven-day trip to Europe which started on Thursday.
Takenaka, a still spritely 59 years old, came out of academia to serve as the economics and finance minister in the reformist Koizumi government (2001-2006).
The odds ought to favour a double election: opinion polls suggest that Mr Koizumi's reform-minded cabinet enjoys the support of almost every voter in Japan.
Japan appears to have taken a big step toward freer capitalism with Junichiro Koizumi's snap-election victory, although the breadth of his intended reforms outside of postal-fund privatization remains to be seen.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Mr Putin - who also met on Friday - agreed to boost joint work on energy projects, and reaffirmed the need to sign a post-World War II peace treaty.
Since there will be stiff political resistance to a bank clean-up no matter what, Mr Koizumi and Mr Takenaka must make certain they win on this point before doling out any public-spending goodies.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have all been welcomed in recent weeks.
In 2005, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for his country's role in World War II on the 60th anniversary of the war's end.
Hopes that the tenure of prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, would mark a turning-point for Japan in its commitment to change have begun to fade.
Under the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan has slashed local-government remittances and spending on the kinds of public works that used to bring money to the countryside.
Still, as Yashiro points out, it is now clearer than ever that the way forward for Japan, if it is to revive its economy, is the way plotted by Koizumi and his reformer in 2001-2006.
Mr Koizumi has a penchant for appointing private-sector folk to head up public institutions.
In early August 2005 the then-prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, called a snap election to push through postal privatisation.
ECONOMIST: The unfathomable Naoto Kan defies both friends and enemies
Yet, though Mr Koizumi's few big, headline-grabbing efforts have foundered, leading him to this gamble, he has actually achieved quite a lot in quieter ways.
At first, the bureaucrats flatly rejected Mr Koizumi's push to privatise these road-building enterprises.
The report criticizes back-tracking on the earlier (Koizumi government) decision to privatize the Japan postal savings system.
Yet Kuniko Inoguchi, a minister under Mr Koizumi and a leading light in his non-faction, casts doubt on the idea.
Japan's reform-talking prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has repeatedly promised to do "whatever is necessary to avoid a financial crisis, " but after nine months in office he has produced little beyond rhetoric.
But Mr Koizumi's junior coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito, has balked at the idea.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is reportedly chairing a meeting of the policy-setting Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, which will announce a package later in the day.
Accordingly, it rejected the free-market version of change championed by Junichiro Koizumi, a reforming LDP prime minister.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had rejected any possibility that Tokyo would withdraw its 550-troop contingent from Iraq where they have been conducting humanitarian missions.
The chief lines of debate will be drawn between Kaoru Yosano, a former economy minister who argues for a swift start to hikes in the consumption tax, and Hidenao Nakagawa, once a close adviser to Mr Koizumi, who says the bureaucracy must be fixed and supply-side measures taken first.
The long-term solution is the sort of tax rise Mr Koizumi shows no stomach for.
Early reports on the premiership of Japan's Shinzo Abe have him either furthering the liberalization thrust of Junichiro Koizumi or restoring the insular old guard of the Liberal Democratic Party--or both.
President-elect Roh Moo-hyun is to be inaugurated in February, and Mr Koizumi is considering attending the ceremony.
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