TOKYO, JAPAN - JAPAN'S new government shows again one of the great anomalies of politics in the Asian economic power - virtually all the key leaders are members of family dynasties.

New Prime Minister Taro Aso is descended from a line of politicians involved in government since the birth of modern Japan.

Most famous was his grandfather, premier Shigeru Yoshida, who led Japan as it rebuilt after World War II.

Nearly one-third of the members of Japan's more powerful lower house of parliament are descended from political families, according to a survey by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

The proportion for members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has held power in Japan for all but 10 months since 1955, is even more striking, at some 38 per cent.

Some analysts argue that the dynastic nature of the LDP is leading to its decline.

The ruling party faces a rising opposition and a faltering economy as it heads into general elections that could take place as soon as late next month.

'This is basically a semi-monarchical system,' said Mr Robert Dujarric, the head of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University.

'The LDP is full of hereditary politicians. The only thing that they had to do was to be born. So in elections based on ability, they are so tied to the system that it's difficult for them to break the mould,' he said.

Family legacies often translate into policy. The last prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, was a champion of reconciliation with other Asian nations resentful of Japan over its past aggression.

He was said to be following the lead of his father, premier Takeo Fukuda, who signed a landmark peace treaty with China in 1978.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Mr Fukuda's predecessor Shinzo Abe advocated 'a beautiful nation' proud of its past and questioned the Allied trials of World War II war criminals.

Mr Abe was known to idolise his grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, a wartime cabinet minister who was jailed - but not tried - as a war criminal by US occupation forces.

Not to be outdone, the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan is also full of hereditary politicians. including its leader, Ichiro Ozawa, the son of a cabinet minister.

But the family links are particularly strong in Mr Aso's new government. His foreign minister is Hirofumi Nakasone, the son of well-respected prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone who led Japan in the roaring 1980s.

Some experts see the trend as inspired from pre-modern Japan, when feudal leaders held locks on power in their fiefdoms.

In modern times, future hereditary lawmakers build up their connections from a young age, often starting their careers as their fathers' secretaries.

'They block many qualified candidates from being elected,' said Professor Shujiro Kato, a specialist in politics at Toyo University, who predicted a backlash in the future.

'The Japanese public will soon start requiring politicians to have their own political beliefs and to explain them precisely and not to just become politicians for the sake of it,' he said. -- AFP