08/09/2025

MONDAY | SEPT 8, 2025

7

Tycoon takes office as Thai PM

Japan premier Ishiba calls it a day TOKYO: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ( pic) said yesterday he would step down after less than a year in power, during which he lost his majority in both houses of parliament. The announcement means fresh uncertainty for the world’s fourth largest economy as it battles rising food prices and deals with the fallout of US tariffs on its vital auto sector. “Now that negotiations on US tariff measures have reached a conclusion, I believe this is the appropriate moment,” Ishiba told a news conference. “I have decided to step aside and make way for the next generation.” President Donald Trump signed an order on Thursday to lower tariffs on Japanese cars, now face a 15% tariff instead of the current 27.5%, the levy will still cause significant pain in the crucial industry. The decision comes less than a year after the 68-year-old, seen as a safe pair of hands, took the helm of the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He won the party leadership last September to become the LDP’s 10th separate prime minister since 2000, all of them men. News reports said earlier that Ishiba wanted to avoid a split in the party and that he was unable to withstand the mounting calls for his resignation. The farm minister and a former prime minister reportedly met Ishiba on Saturday night to urge him to resign voluntarily. Four senior LDP officials, including the party’s number two Hiroshi Moriyama, offered to resign last week. Opponents of Ishiba had been calling for him to step down to take responsibility for the election results, following the upper chamber vote in July. Those backing the move included Taro Aso, the influential 84-year-old former prime minister. Ishiba’s term as party leader was supposed to end in September 2027. His most prominent rival Sanae Takaichi, who is seen as a hardline nationalist, all but said on Tuesday that she would seek a contest. Voters are less than keen on the hawkish Takaichi, runner-up in the last leadership election in 2024. A Nikkei survey held at the end of August put Takaichi as the most “fitting” successor to Ishiba, followed by farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi, but 52% of respondents said a leadership contest was unnecessary. After the election, social media users called for the moderate Ishiba to remain in power under the hashtag “#Ishiba Don’t quit”. The LDP has governed almost continuously since 1955, but voters have been deserting the party, including towards fringe groups such as the populist Sanseito. – AFP with Washington finally moving to implement a trade pact negotiated with Tokyo in July. A l t h o u g h Japanese cars will

o King endorses appointment

BANGKOK: Thai tycoon Anutin Charnvirakul took office as prime minister yesterday, with the conservative leader ousting the nation’s dominant political dynasty and setting course for elections early next year. Since 2023 elections, Thailand’s top office has been monopolised by the Pheu Thai party of the Shinawatra dynasty – a populist force which has long sparred with the pro-monarchy, pro-military establishment. But dynasty heiress Paetongtarn Shinawatra was last month sacked by court order, and Anutin rushed to piece together his own coalition government, winning a Friday parliament vote to shut Pheu Thai out of office. Anutin previously served as deputy prime minister, interior minister and health minister but is perhaps most famous for being the architect of Thailand’s 2022 cannabis decriminalisation. The construction magnate becomes the kingdom’s third leader in two years, but has taken power with coalition backing conditional on him dissolving parliament within four months to hold fresh elections. “I will work at my full capacity with honesty and morality worthy of His Majesty’s trust, for the benefit of the people and for the country,” Anutin said immediately after taking office. His term officially began after the royal endorsement of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, read aloud in a formal ceremony at Anutin’s Bhumjaithai NUSANTARA: A year after it was inaugurated, Indonesia’s would-be new capital Nusantara attracts tourists and construction workers, but most of its architecturally arresting presidential palace and freshly built avenues sit silent. The legacy project of former president Joko Widodo is battling a slashed budget, slowed construction and a deficit of interest from a new leader focused on social projects. That has raised questions about whether the city, carved out of the jungle to replace crowded and rapidly sinking Jakarta, will ever see its promised potential. “The political will on IKN right now feels muted,” said Dedi Dinarto, senior associate at public policy advisory firm Global Counsel, referring to the new capital’s official name, Ibu Kota Nusantara. President Prabowo Subianto “is clearly putting his chips on welfare”. Just over 1,000 city authority employees live in Nusantara, along with a few hundred more ministry workers and service and medical employees. That’s far short of Jakarta’s 12 million residents, and the new city’s goal of two million inhabitants by 2045. Prabowo mentioned IKN just once in his first state of the nation speech, and has slashed funding for the project.

Anutin with his Cabinet at the royal endorsement ceremony. – AFPPIC/ROYAL THAI GOVERNMENT HANDOUT

The Supreme Court is due to rule tomorrow in a case over Thaksin’s hospital stay following his return from exile in August 2023, a decision that could affect the validity of his early release from prison last year. While his guilt is not the subject of the case, some analysts say the verdict could see him jailed. Thaksin promised on social media to return from Dubai to attend the court date “in person”, while Anutin has said his administration will show “no favouritism, no persecution and no revenge”. – AFP

with their Pheu Thai Party this summer in apparent outrage over Paetongtarn’s conduct during a border row with Cambodia. Thailand’s Constitutional Court found on Aug 29 that her conduct had breached ministerial ethics and fired her after only a year in power. Thaksin Shinawatra, the dynasty patriarch, flew out of the kingdom in the hours ahead of the Friday parliament vote confirming Anutin, bound for Dubai, where he said he would visit friends and seek medical treatment.

Party headquarters in Bangkok. “His Majesty the King has endorsed Mr Anutin Charnvirakul to be prime minister,” said secretary general of the lower house of parliament Arpath Sukhanunth, reading out the royal command. He was once an ally of the Shinawatras, who have been a dominant force in Thai politics since the turn of the century, but are increasingly faltering after a succession of legal and political setbacks. Anutin abandoned his coalition

Nusantara battles slashed budget, interest deficit

Official budgets show a cut from 43.4 trillion rupiah (RM11.24 billion) last year to just 6.3 trillion rupiah next year. The authority had requested more than 21 trillion rupiah for next year. Significant foreign funding has also proved elusive despite overtures to allies in the Middle East and Asia. “Prabowo feels that this is not his legacy. It’s not his big push and he has more programmes that he wants to push,” an official involved in the city’s construction said on condition of anonymity. “I’m still 50-50 on it (being finished),” the official added, saying the budget cuts mean “a lot of things will not be completed”. The former president, known popularly as Jokowi, revived the long proposed capital move when he won a second term in 2019. But despite a rush to build, the city was not inaugurated as the new capital on Aug 17 last year as expected. “In Joko Widodo’s time, it was very fast-moving. Now, in Prabowo’s time ... it’s not as fast,” said Sofian Sibarani, the city’s designer. Just 800 of the planned 6,600ha of the core government area have been developed or prepared for construction, he said. Nusantara officials are undeterred, and tout the city as Indonesia’s future power centre.

A year after it was inaugurated, Nusantara’s architecturally arresting presidential palace and freshly built avenues sit silent. – AFPPIC

you have doubts, it is your loss,”he said. Some government employees have expressed reservations about moving to an unfinished jungle city 1,200km from Jakarta. But city employee Helena, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, insisted her unfinished tower block offers “an amazing level of comfort”. The city has three functioning hospitals, coffee shops, a toll road to nearby Balikpapan city and an airport waiting for commercial flight approval. A planned shopping mall and cinema remain unbuilt. Businesses counting on a boom of arrivals say they are struggling. – AFP

City authority head Basuki Hadimuljono said projects in a smaller executive area housing the palace and ministries in the government core were “already 97% to 98%”complete. He claimed Prabowo wants to move in 2028 before the next presidential election, once the legislative and judicial areas are finished. Since taking office, Prabowo has yet to express any plans to sign the presidential decree needed to shift from Jakarta. “It would be signed after the legislative and judicial areas are completed” in 2028, said Basuki. “If you do not want to move here, or