Japan happy with "stable" PM

By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - Most Japanese voters are happy with moderate 71-year-old Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, a poll showed on Wednesday, as he sets out on a more cautious policy tack than his hawkish predecessor, Shinzo Abe.

But Taro Aso, who fought Fukuda in the September ruling Liberal Democratic Party leadership race and then turned down a place in his cabinet, praised Abe and vowed to lead a "conservative revival" in an essay published the same day.

Almost 60 percent of Japanese voters support Fukuda, many of them saying his stability appeals to them, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun poll. More than half of those polled said they wanted Fukuda to stay in office for two years or more, the paper said.

Fukuda made no mention in his first policy speech to parliament last week of Abe's pet ideas of "building a beautiful nation" by encouraging patriotism in schools, revising the pacifist constitution and forging a higher military profile overseas.

"I don't think conservativism is fading away," said Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus. "But I don't think people are very keen on the flavor of conservatism represented by Abe and Aso."

Fukuda and his cabinet have turned a sympathetic ear to protests by Okinawan leaders angered by the removal of references in school textbooks to the military's role in mass suicides on the island near the end of World War Two -- changes made under Abe earlier this year.

In a parliamentary committee this week, Fukuda was cautious on "collective self-defense," the ability to come to the aid of an ally under attack, which Abe had hoped to approve, media said.

Japan Conference, the country's biggest conservative pressure group, which has hundreds of lawmakers among its members, has expressed dissatisfaction with Fukuda.