TOKYO: Japan’s new government boasts a record number of women,

including two cabinet ministers, slightly shifting the gender balance

in a country with historically low female representation in politics.

The election victory of the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) altered the demographic map of the lower house, with 54 women winning seats in the 480-member chamber, up from 43 after the last election.

One of them, Keiko Chiba, 61, is the new justice minister, who opposes the death penalty and wants to encourage national debate on ending capital punishment. She is a supporter of London-based human rights group Amnesty International, which released a damning report last week that

said inhumane prison conditions in Japan were driving some death row inmates insane. Chiba also wants to push an issue dear to the hearts of many Japanese women — allowing married couples to have different surnames, a break with the current practice of forcing wives to assume their

husbands’ family names.

The other female minister, with the portfolio of consumer affairs, population and gender equality, is Mizuho Fukushima, 53, a former human rights lawyer and leader of junior coalition partner the Social Democratic Party.

One of her major tasks will be to encourage family-friendly policies to boost Japan’s low birth rate. The country faces a demographic time bomb, with a fast-greying population set to start shrinking soon.

Other new female faces entered the lower house as part of what the media had dubbed the DPJ’s “Princess Corps”, so-called female assassins who targeted conservative party veterans in their home districts. Dozens of them beat their grey-suited rivals, with many first-termers now called “Ozawa girls” as they came to power under the guidance of DPJ heavyweight and campaign commander Ichiro Ozawa.

Not all the women who broke

the political glass ceiling had an

easy start. Gossip magazines have

dug up the past of one female first-termer, Mieko Tanaka, 33, a former

travel agency employee who was forced to admit she used to work as a reporter for a sex industry magazine. Tanaka went head-to-head with former PM Yoshiro Mori, 72, who sneered during the campaign that “she was picked (as a candidate) only because she is young and has a nice body.” She failed to beat the LDP kingmaker but obtained a seat through the proportional representation system.

The new female lawmakers now

account for 11.3 percent of members in the Diet’s lower house, up from

9.2 before the poll. But Japan still has some way to go.