Nationalist Shinzo Abe Is Likely Japan's Next PM The Liberal Democratic Party's victory in Japan's parliamentary election Sunday virtually ensures that Shinzo Abe, who resigned as prime minister for health reasons in 2007 after just a year in office, will get a second chance to try to lead Japan out of its economic slump. In Abe's political resurrection, the Japanese are confiding their hopes for a national comeback, backing Liberal Democrat pledges to restore the good times of the 1980s and 90s, before the financial bubble went bust and the economy slid into a 20-year funk. Abe epitomizes the LDP brand of conservatism and nationalism that kept the party in power for most of the post-World War II era, until it was ousted by the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009. Despite his tough talk, it is unclear just how determined or able he will be to pursue his nationalist convictions, which could further worsen already testy relations with China, hurting automakers and other industries with huge investments in the fast-growing Chinese market. "We are not sure what Abe will turn out to be like," said Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi newspaper. Once he gets into office, he will likely retreat a bit. Under Abe, the Liberal Democrats claim to have been reborn, though their platform differs little from strategies of the past, calling for a restoration of Japan's economic strength through public works spending, greater emphasis on patriotism and love of country, and a more nationalist foreign policy. "We have reflected deeply over these three years," Abe proclaimed in a final day of campaigning Saturday, speaking to a crowd of several hundred mostly middle-aged and older supporters massed in the morning chill outside a train station in Wako, a Tokyo bedroom community of 80,000 in the city's northwest suburbs. Many voters seem less interested, anyway, in new ideas than in a return to the familiar - just what Abe has to offer: "We tried with the Democratic Party of Japan for the last three years, which made me realize how much better the Liberal Democratic Party was," said part-time worker Hitomi Furuya, 45, after Abe sped off to his next campaign stop. "We believe the LDP is more capable," said Fumie Asano, beaming as she stood outside the train station with her husband. "I trust them more," said Asano, a member of the Buddhist-backed Komeito party, which is expected to join with the Liberal Democrats in a coalition that would return Abe to the boxy glass and granite Kantei, Japan's version of the White House. Abe's return to the pinnacle of Japanese leadership is as unlikely a rebound as his first ascent seemed inevitable. When he took office the first time, in 2006, Abe was the country's youngest prime minister, a princeling with an impeccable political lineage: his father Shintaro Abe was a former foreign minister, and his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, was arrested as a war criminal after World War II, but reinstated to become prime minister. Abe graduated from Tokyo's Seikei University in 1977 and studied politics at the University of Southern California. He worked for a time at Kobe Steel before becoming a political aide to his father in 1982. After his father's death, Abe ran for Parliament's lower house and was elected in 1993.