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

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STAT	Japan	Samoa	HISTORY
Head of state	Emperor Akihito	Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi
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>Former prime minister Tupua was elected head of state by parliament for a five-year term in 2007 on the death of paramount chief Malietoa Tanumafili II, who had been in office since independence. With the election of Tupua, Samoa switched from being a constitutional monarchy to being a republic. </p> <p>Born in 1938, Tupua is an academic historian and a member of one of the leading extended families of the country. </p> <p>He entered parliament as a Christian Democrat MP in 1966, and served as prime minister in 1976-82 and deputy prime minister in 1985-88. </p>
Prime minister	Shinzo Abe	Tuila&#039;epa Sailele Malielegaoi
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>Prime Minister Tuila&#039;epa&#039;s ruling Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) gained a landslide victory in parliamentary polls in March 2011, heralding a fourth term for the premier. </p><p>The HRPP won 36 seats out of the 49 available in the Samoan parliament, the Fono. The opposition Tautua Samoa Party (TSP), contesting an election for the first time since its formation in 2008, won the remaining 13 seats. </p> <p>Mr Tuila&#039;epa won his seat unopposed, despite criticism over the government&#039;s handling of a deadly tsunami that struck the country in 2009. However, three of his cabinet ministers lost their seats in the election. </p> <p>He first became prime minister in 1998 when his predecessor, Tofilau Eti Alesana, resigned on health grounds after 16 years in the job. </p> <p>Born in 1945 and an economist by training, Mr Tuila&#039;epa was educated in Samoa and New Zealand, where he gained a master&#039;s degree - the first Samoan to do so. </p> <p>In 1978 he moved to Brussels to work for the European Economic Community. He entered the Fono two years later, while simultaneously working as a partner in the accounting firm Coopers and Lybrand. </p> <p>All but two of the seats in the Fono are reserved for ethnic Samoans and only the heads of extended families, known as &quot;matai&quot;, may stand for election to them. The Fono selects the prime minister. </p>
Prime minister > Summary	Mr Abe&#039;s nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan&#039;s neighbours	Tuila&#039;epa Sailele Malielegaoi, in office since 1998

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