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Abe favored as Japan's next leader

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(CNN) -- Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, 51, is the front-runner to succeed Junichiro Koizumi as the next president of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, a post which will carry with it the prime ministership of Japan.

There are two other declared candidates for the September 20 election, which will be decided by LDP members: Foreign Minister Taro Aso, 65, and Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, 61.

The latest poll by the Nihon Keizai business daily has Abe well clear with 37 percent of respondents nominating him as their preferred successor to Koizumi, followed by Aso with 13 percent and Tanigaki 12 percent.

Abe's strongest rival, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, dropped out of the race in July. A closer look at the candidates:

Shinzo Abe

Abe was born September 21, 1954, in Nagato, Yamaguchi, prefecture. He is the son of Shintaro Abe, a former foreign minister and LDP secretary-general, and grandson of former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi (1957-60). Abe is a law graduate from Tokyo's Seikei University (1977) and also studied at the University of Southern California. He worked for Kobe Steel before becoming a political aide in 1982.

First elected to the House of Representatives in 1993, he was appointed by Koizumi to the key post of chief cabinet secretary in September 2005. Like Koizumi, he is a populist, but has more hawkish views. He has been a regular visitor to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan's war dead are honored.

Taro Aso

Aso was born September 20, 1940, and comes from Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu. He graduated from Gakushuin University in Tokyo, and later studied in the United States (Stanford) and the U.K. (University of London). An Olympic shooter (Montreal 1976), he is a son-in-law of former Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki (1980-82), and a grandson of the late Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who dominated postwar politics from 1944 to 1954.

Aso has been elected to the House of Representatives nine times since 1979 and has served in a variety of portfolios, including communications, economic and fiscal policy. He was appointed foreign minister in October 2005 Aso, who ran against Koizumi for the LDP presidency in 2001, is known for his conservative views.

Sadakazu Tanigaki

Tanigaki was born March 7, 1945, in Tokyo, is a law graduate from Tokyo University. Tanigaki planned to follow a career in law, but moved to Kyoto in 2003 after the death of his father (a former education minister) and took his father's House of Representatives seat there.

He has been Koizumi's finance minister since September 2003. He is regarded as a moderate and has said he will discontinue visits to the Yasukuni Shrine if he becomes prime minister.

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