Japan's new prime minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, is a tough-talking, flamboyant politician popular with many voters, but his lone-wolf ways have brought him less affection within his own party.
Hashimoto, 58, who grabbed headlines last year for his tough stance in a bitter car-trade dispute with the United States, succeeds 71-year-old Tomiichi Murayama - a grandfatherly figure who won praise for his sincerity but mostly low marks for leadership.A debonair character who stands out against less colorful colleagues with his slicked-back hair, rakish suits and flashy cigarette holder, Hashi-moto heads the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the biggest party in a coalition that includes Murayama's Socialists and the small Sakigake party.
The LDP elected Hashimoto as its president in September in the hope that his popularity would help it regain the premiership and then lead it back to sole power, a position it lost 2 1/2 years ago after a spate of scandals.
A member of the LDP faction founded by the late kingmaker and father of Japanese pork-barrel politics, Kakuei Tanaka, Hashimoto has nonetheless done relatively little to build a personal party base through the traditional means of plying followers with favors and posts.
A nationalist who practices kendo, a martial art in which contestants duel with bamboo swords, Hashimoto has never been one to shy away from a fight.
That quality made him one of Japan's toughest trade negotiators. Dealing with U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, Hashimoto said, was like kendo. "If you don't pay attention to your rival, you get hit on the head."
Hashimoto might do well to remember his own words, since the main opposition New Frontier Party (Shinshinto) - headed by his longtime rival Ichiro Ozawa - has pledged to pull no punches in its push for early general elections.
No novice to economic policy, Hashimoto has pushed hard for large-scale public spending and a policy of easy credit, cornerstones of recent government steps to boost the economy.
But Hashimoto is not expected to challenge bureaucratic control or enact drastic reform in key areas such as deregulation. That bolder stance has instead been staked out by Ozawa - another Tanaka disciple who has forged an image as a man of reformist vision coupled with backroom political wiles.
While Hashimoto has been characterized as part of a new generation of leaders willing to say "no" to Washington if interests clash, that stance is not seen sparking swift changes in security ties or intractable trade feuds with America.
Hashimoto's nationalistic bent may not endear him to the rest of Asia, which has bitter memories of Japan's wartime colonial rule.
As chairman of the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association, Hashimoto was instrumental in watering down the government's official apology for Japan's wartime aggression last year.
In October 1994 he said it was a "delicate matter of definitions" whether Japan committed aggression against Asian nations during the war.
Often described in the past as popular with female voters, Hashi-mo-to angered many women some years ago by suggesting higher female education levels and better career opportunities were responsible for the nation's low birthrate.
The son of a former welfare minister, Hashimoto inherited his father's constituency in western Japan and was elected to the lower house in 1963, when he was just 25.
He was considered for the premiership in 1989 when two LDP prime ministers were forced from office by scandal, but instead the party turned to Toshiki Kaifu to clean up its image.
Hashimoto served as finance minister in Kaifu's Cabinet. That stint as finance minister could come back to haunt him when he seeks parliament's support for an unpopular plan to spend taxpayers' money to help wind up ailing mortgage firms.
During his term, the ministry exempted mortgage firms from limits on property-related lending. Many of those loans to real estate developers turned sour when Japan's asset prices began slumping with the end of the bubble economy in the early 1990s.