Quotes of the Day

Meet the candidates vying to lead this Asian nation: one is the son of a former Prime Minister, the other is a grandson of another former Prime Minister. The man they would replace, who announced his resignation on Sept. 12 after less than a year in power, is yet another former Premier's grandson. And the top man before that? Yup, another scion of a political dynasty.

Is this version of Family Affair unfolding in Bangladesh or the Philippines? Think again. It's Japan, long held up as the paragon of a mature Asian democracy, yet which continues to serve up political leaders distinguishable only by subtleties of grey in their ideological coloration. Yasuo Fukuda, the leading candidate to replace Shinzo Abe as Japan's next PM, and Fukuda's rival, Taro Aso, appear to be trying to differentiate themselves as the Sept. 23 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) election approaches. Aso is pegged as a tough-talking hawk, Fukuda a diplomatic dove. But both are products of a political system dominated not by people with the right ideas, but by people with the right names. "Second- or third-generation politicians tend to learn the techniques of the family business," says Hirotada Asakawa, a Tokyo-based political analyst, "without having any strong passions about what they want to do for the country."

Perpetuating the family business doesn't get at the real challenges facing Japan. But rather than combat the country's complex problems — stagnating wages, a widening income gap, a shifting global balance of power — many politicians seem intent on replaying ancient political battles. And it's not just a Bush here or a Kennedy there: roughly one-third of Japan's sitting parliamentarians come from political nobility. Hereditary leadership doesn't just plague the LDP, which has ruled Japan virtually uninterrupted for half a century, but opposition parties as well. Ichiro Ozawa, the head of the Democratic Party of Japan, is the son of a former Cabinet minister.

Doing what Papa or Grandpa preached would be fine if it made sense to Japanese voters. But look at what happened to Abe, grandson of a nationalist ex-Premier. He blamed his resignation on the opposition for having stymied his efforts to continue Japanese refueling of American ships involved in the U.S.-led war on terror. Abe, like his grandfather, was intent on strengthening Japan's military ties with the U.S. But the Japanese public had already deserted Abe, not because of his foreign policy but over his inability to address fundamental economic issues. Harping on a faraway military operation only made Abe appear more out of touch.

In fact, the majority of Japanese oppose the country's naval mission. Yet Aso and Fukuda, like Abe, both support extending Japanese refueling, and they have other things in common. Their family political DNA runs deep. Aso's grandfather was Shigeru Yoshida, a China-bashing leader who called for Japan to rely on American military protection so it could focus on developing an export-led economy. Fast-forward half a century and Aso, a former Foreign Minister, staunchly supports the U.S.-Japan security alliance, while antagonizing China by defending visits of Japanese statesmen to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are memorialized. Meanwhile, Fukuda's father was an LDP stalwart who while PM promoted diplomatic relations with Asia through "heart-to-heart" dialogue. And guess what? That's what Fukuda, a former Chief Cabinet Secretary, peddles himself as today: a consensus-driven political insider who opposes Yasukuni visits because they alienate Japan's neighbors. The country's enormous public debt? A scandal-ridden pension system? A bloated bureaucracy? Neither Fukuda nor Aso has dedicated much campaign time to such issues.

That's too bad, because the rest of Japan has moved on from the reductionist U.S. good/China bad (or vice versa) matrix of the cold war era. The Japanese public, newly confident of their nation's place in the world but worried about economic concerns back home, deserves better than an old guard. Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, himself heir to a minor political dynasty, created the impression of trimming family political ties by installing private-sector civilians in key leadership posts. But Abe's most recent Cabinet re-embraced the political nobility — and neither Fukuda nor Aso can be counted on to do anything very different.

That said, it is in the end the Japanese electorate that keeps putting political bluebloods back in power. Japan Inc. is trying to meet the challenges of the new century by rewarding innovation over seniority, and young Japanese are founding companies that don't rely on inefficient armies of salarymen. Unless Japan is willing to shake up its political system, too, the country — no matter who's anointed on Sunday — may end up getting the leader it deserves. It could do so much better.

• Hannah Beech
• Japan's democracy may work smoothly, but its politics are still dominated by change-resistant dynasties that limit voter choice