Government > Leaders Stats: compare key data on Japan & Jordan

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STAT	Japan	Jordan	HISTORY
Head of state	Emperor Akihito	King Abdullah II
Head of state > Profile	<p>Akihito succeeded his father, Hirohito, in 1989. Under the 1947 constitution, Japan&#039;s emperors have a purely ceremonial role. </p>	<p>King Abdullah II, Jordan&#039;s monarch since 1999, has extensive powers: he appoints governments, approves legislation and is able to dissolve parliament. </p><p>Over the past few years, he has been facing growing demands for political reform, and following the popular uprising in Tunisia which led to the flight of the president in January 2011, King Abdullah dismissed his government and appointed the first in a series of prime ministers to oversee the introduction of political change. </p> <p>Previously he had backed a 10-year programme for political, social and economic reform and supported a plan for elected local councils. Conservative legislators were apprehensive about the proposals. </p> <p>Balancing diplomatic interests with domestic demands has been tricky for King Abdullah. The country&#039;s peace agreement with Israel and its close ties with the US are unpopular with many Jordanians. </p> <p>In the wake of the November 2005 suicide bombings in Amman, the king declared that security and stability were top priorities and called for a strategy to deal with the &quot;changed circumstances&quot;. </p> <p>Abdullah is the eldest son of the late King Hussein and his British-born second wife, Toni. The couple divorced in 1972. Born in 1962 and educated in Britain and the US, he was named as crown prince shortly after his birth. The king transferred the title to his own brother, Hassan, in 1965, only to return it to Abdullah in 1999. </p> <p>He is married to a Palestinian - an asset since most Jordanians are of Palestinian origin - and enjoys car racing, water sports and collecting antique weapons. He is a career soldier and once led Jordan&#039;s special forces. </p>
Prime minister	Shinzo Abe	Abdullah Ensour
Prime minister > Profile	<p>Shinzo Abe became Japan&#039;s prime minister for the second time in December 2012, after his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) scored a landslide election win.</p><p>He previously served a brief term as premier in 2006-7, when he was Japan&#039;s youngest leader since World War II.</p> <p>He began his first term in office with a high approval rating, but a series of scandals and gaffes damaged the government, and with support for his administration plummeting, Mr Abe stepped down, citing ill health.</p> <p>The centre-left Democratic Party (DPJ) came to power in August 2009 - having also won a landslide election - but quickly lost popularity as a result of a mounting financial crisis. The DPJ government also struggled to cope with the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami, and was in its turn beset by a series of scandals.</p> <p>By the autumn of 2012, faced with a &quot;fiscal cliff&quot; brought on by the country&#039;s public debt mountain - the highest debt to GDP ratio in the industrialised world - and the crippling after-effects of the nuclear crisis triggered by the tsunami, the DPJ had no choice but to call an early election.</p> <p>On returning to the premiership in 2012, Mr Abe acknowledged the widely held perception that the LDP&#039;s sweeping victory owed a lot to anger at DPJ failures, and was not necessarily a statement of confidence in the conservative party that had previously ruled Japan almost continuously for half a century.</p> <p>Known as a right-wing hawk, Mr Abe comes from a high-profile political family. His father was a former foreign minister, while his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, was arrested as a suspected war criminal after World War II but never charged.</p> <p>Shinzo Abe won his first seat in parliament in 1993 and was appointed to the cabinet for the first time in October 2005, when he was given the important role of chief cabinet secretary.</p> <p>During his first premiership, he showed himself to be an outspoken populist, pushing for a more assertive foreign policy and a greater role for Japan on the world stage.</p> <p>Under his administration, a bill was passed setting out steps for holding a referendum on revising the country&#039;s pacifist constitution.</p> <p>He also called for a greater sense of national pride and backed a law requiring the teaching of patriotism in schools.</p> <p>He provoked anger in China and South Korea when he said there was no evidence that women were forced to become sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II. He later apologised for these remarks.</p> <p>After standing down from the premiership in September 2007, he temporarily disappeared from the political spotlight. He returned to the political stage in September 2012 with his election as LDP leader, and soon expressed strong views on the ongoing territorial rows with China and South Korea.</p> <p>The main challenge that he faces is the state of the economy. His decision to weaken the yen seemed to reap dividends when exports rose 10.1% in May 2013 - the fastest annual rate since 2010. </p> <p>He went on to win control of the upper house of parliament in July, seeing this as an endorsement of his economic and foreign policy.</p>	<p>Reformist Abdullah Ensour was sworn in as head of a new government on 30 March, only months after offering his resignation following parliamentary elections in January 2013.</p> <p>Mr Ensour, a former minister and vocal advocate of democratic reform, was re-nominated by the king following extensive consultation with parliament. Previously, MPs played no role in the process.</p> <p>However, the main opposition Islamic Action Front said the exercise was largely cosmetic.</p> <p>Observers said the new cabinet&#039;s main task will be to cut government spending in order to deal with Jordan&#039;s growing budget deficit and financial crisis.</p> <p>In a first cost-cutting effort, the cabinet was shrunk to its smallest size in four decades.</p> <p>Pro-government candidates swept to victory in the January poll, which was billed as key to pushing forward King Abdullah&#039;s reform programme but was boycotted by the Islamic Action Front.</p> <p>Mr Ensour said the election was a stepping stone on the path of &quot;more vigorous, serious&quot; reforms. </p> <p>The Islamic Action Front and other smaller parties boycotted the poll to protest an election law they saw as biased in favour of the king&#039;s supporters. </p> <p>King Abdullah surprised observers when he first appointed Mr Ensour as prime minister in October 2012, shortly after dissolving parliament.</p> <p>Mr Ensour, an independent MP, had good connections both to the Royal Court and to opposition groups, including the Islamic Action Front and the powerful trade unions. </p>
Prime minister > Summary	Mr Abe&#039;s nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan&#039;s neighbours	Abdullah Ensour has vowed to speed up economic and political reform

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