When Yasuo Fukuda emerged last week as the would-be saviour of theLiberal Democratic party, he told one interviewer that he "had drawn the short straw". Indeed, he takes over a party that has lost control of the upper house to the Democratic party of Japan amid a voter backlash over the effects of free-market reforms that are said to be leaving large swaths of Japanese society behind.

If the LDP cannot provide voters with hope that five years of economic growth can eventually improve their living standards, the party faces the real danger of being thrown from power at the next general election - which must be held by 2009 - according to some political analysts.