So, it looks like Taro Aso vs. Yasuo Fukuda (and, also Observing Japan's profile) in an election the Asahi Daily's political news editor characterizes as "Interim".

No matter who may replace Abe, the new Cabinet will also be regarded as interim. The political void will continue as long as opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) remains set to block the extension of the MSDF mission.

There seems to be sets of contests going on. Firstly, there's the horse race within the Liberal Democratic Party between Aso and Fukuda and their factional supporters. Secondly, there's the issues contest, between voters' demands (translated somewhat by certain factions) and the DPJ's opposition to disgraced Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's staunch support for the continued MSDF deployment in West Asia.

On the first count, there's a good discussion at Trans-Pacific Radio, where Garrett DeOrio raises a good point:

I?d overlooked one very important thing, possibly the most important thing, and apparently the thing that led to Fukuda gaining factional support - with the DPJ able to slow things down, the most important consideration has to be who will be able to work with the DPJ and win them over to his causes. That person is never going to be Aso.

Japan Observer disagrees.

On the second point, The Economist lays out a series of arguments why Japan's factional in-fighting, within both the LDP and DPJ (which is really not a party so much as a renegade bastion of the LDP), erodes popular support.

The first is that too many LDP leaders, including Mr Abe and his most likely successor, Taro Aso, are obsessed with Japan's international stature and have lost touch with voters. They want to amend the pacifist constitution so that Japan can play a role in the world commensurate with its economic might. Voters are more interested in the economic might itself, and what it could do for them.

That is the second problem. Mr Koizumi's flair and common touch enabled him to sell voters a bill of goods which, on closer inspection, they do not like. His liberalising, market-friendly reforms will, if followed through, do much to sustain Japan's recent economic revival. But in the short term they are bringing pain to many areas. Unlike Mr Abe, Mr Koizumi timed his departure well.

Third, the DPJ's ability to stall and ultimately thwart the anti-terror legislation is not a temporary phenomenon. The next upper-house elections are six years away; it may be 12 before the LDP wins its majority back. After a Koizumi-inspired landslide in the 2005 lower-house elections, the LDP can carry on governing. But Mr Ozawa has a stranglehold.

That would not matter so much if he led a party that might form a credible government. He does not: indeed, he himself does not want to be prime minister and is in poor health. The fourth big problem is the lack of a serious opposition. The DPJ is less a coherent party than a job lot of competing factions: rather like the LDP, in fact, but without the experience of more than 50 years of nearly uninterrupted power.

Compared to South Korea's ephemeral machines, Japan's parties look like venerable institutions. Yet, it's troubling to envision a future where such organizations would control two such important East Asian republics.