Nationalist wins vote for Japanese ruling party presidency

Nationalist candidate Shinzo Abe won the race for Japan's ruling party leader today, all but clinching election next week as prime minister and pledging to make his country a more robust force on the world stage.

The son of a foreign minister and grandson of a prime minister, Abe trounced his two opponents, winning 464 of the 702 votes counted in the Liberal Democratic Party election.

The youthful conservative - he turns 52 tomorrow - immediately vowed to push ahead with economic reforms, make Tokyo a world leader, strengthen the prime minister's office and keep Japan in the international fight against terrorism.

"I want to make Japan a country that is trusted and loved by the countries of the world, and one that asserts leadership," Abe, currently chief Cabinet secretary, declared after his victory.

Abe, who favours a hard line against North Korea and tighter military co-operation with top ally the United States, won a three-year term as LDP president. The ruling coalition-dominated Parliament votes for prime minister next Tuesday.

If elected next week, Abe would be Japan's youngest post-war prime minister and the first born after the Second World War. He is relatively inexperienced, having joined Parliament in 1993 and assumed his first Cabinet position only a year ago.

Abe campaigned on forging a more confident Japan. He said he would seek to revise the pacifist Constitution to give the military more freedom of action, promote patriotism in the schools, and distance Tokyo from its post-1945 war guilt.