Ex-Presidents and Prime Ministers tend to either cut out a new life as an elder statesman or woman, open libraries or hit the highly lucrative corporate speaking road. Or alternatively they vanish into obscurity. Jimmy Carter is trying to teach the world to be a better place, Tony Blair is himself trying to persuade the Middle East to talk to each other and even Richard Nixon did reasonably well on the talk show circuit.
However, being an ex-Prime Minister in Japan comes with it's own unique set of problems. First of all, if each opened a library we'd be flooded with them by now. There have been sixteen since I first arrived just over twenty years ago and one of those has been in office twice and another held the role for a full six years. So it is a bit of a puppy mill as a profession. But mostly they fade into the background or take up appointments running the Olympics.
One though, Yukio Hatoyama, has taken post-presidency to a whole new level. Hatoyama was the architect of unseating the LDP from power for the first period reasonable time in several decades. He then proceeded on a rather controversial time in office before resigning after nine months. But I did not see this coming. Ladies and Gentlemen, your star of Waist Side Story, the former Prime Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama!
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