Manga man leads field in five-horse race

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Imagine if Helen Clark suddenly resigned and Annette King, Phil Goff, David Cunliffe, Chris Carter and Trevor Mallard all announced they wanted to take her place. Then they started publicly campaigning, despite the fact the public would not get to pick the winner.

Something similar has been going on in Japanese politics. Today, several hundred members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party will vote in its presidential election. The winner is certain to become prime minister because of the party's majority in the lower house.

Five LDP members are in the presidential race. But nobody seems to believe the winner will be anyone other than former foreign minister Taro Aso.

There has been speculation that the candidates are just pretending to compete, to drum up interest before an expected general election.

Mr Aso's status as a self-confessed manga cartoon fanatic gives him a certain appeal among younger Japanese. He has acquired the nickname Rozen Aso, apparently after he was spotted reading a Rozen Maiden comic.

On Friday I got the chance to see him and his four "rivals" in the flesh at a press conference hosted by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

With about 200 foreign and Japanese journalists packed into one room, seasoned foreign correspondents grumbled that it was chaos and they couldn't find a seat, and Kiwi Wayne Hunter, the club's media liaison manager, was making sure everyone behaved themselves.

The Japanese journalist sitting opposite me said everyone knew Mr Aso would win, but reporters thought he might slip up and say something controversial. "We're all hoping for that."

He predicted – correctly, as it turned out – that someone would ask about the use of Allied POWs as forced labour in the Aso family's mines during World War II.

Finally, the five candidates filed in. The room erupted in camera flashes, which persisted as they grasped each other's hands despite the purported contest.

Former TV journalists Nobuteru Ishihara and Yuriko Koike both opted to deliver their sales pitches in English. Ms Koike, the first woman to seek leadership of the party and a Middle East expert, got a laugh when she said she had decided not to speak in Arabic. The next three candidates spoke in Japanese and only then did it dawn on me, too late, that I needed a headset to hear the simultaneous English interpretation.

Mr Aso spoke third, followed by Shigeru Ishiba, who has been called a "military geek" and reportedly said last year he was troubled by the legal issues that could arise if a UFO arrived in Japan.

Finally it was the turn of veteran Kaoru Yosano, who in a husky American accent reminiscient of an old Hollywood star joked: "I didn't know people here can understand English, so my prepared text is in Japanese."

They talked about the economy, relations with China, reform. Mr Aso was asked by an Italian journalist about his devotion to Catholicism.

A reporter for The Guardian broached the sensitive topic of the Yasukuni Shrine, to Japan's war dead, asking if the candidates would attend as prime minister. Visits have sparked protests in China and Korea. They gave varying opinions, as they did when asked whether a general election should be held soon.

Then someone asked about Mr Aso's family ties to POW labour and why he didn't apologise for it. I got the distinct feeling he didn't like the question.

He started his answer in English: "You'd better put your [headphones] on, otherwise you don't understand my beautiful Japanese, no?" Then he said he was only five at the end of the war and had no recollection of the events.

Another journalist asked what everyone was wondering: were they really competing against each other? "Yes, we are in no doubt about it," said Mr Aso, again in English. "Proudly we say yes!"