Shintaro Ishihara wants to restore pride in Japanese nationalism

At 80, most Japanese men are content to play more golf with their buddies, spend their savings on foreign holidays or lavish gifts on their grandchildren.

But Shintaro Ishihara has never been a conventional sort of man and even in his ninth decade, he is convinced that his vision is the right one for Japan.

Despite an uncanny ability to alienate large sections of the voting public, Ishihara is almost certain to return to the Diet after tomorrow's parliamentary election at the helm of his latest political venture, the unashamedly nationalistic Japan Restoration Party (JRP).

This is the man who condemned homosexuality as abnormal, said that "old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin", and claimed that last year's earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 19,000 people were "punishment from heaven" because Japanese people had become too greedy.

Ishihara stepped down as Tokyo governor in October to run in the national polls.

Asked her opinion of Ishihara's plans to create a "third force" in Japanese politics, education minister Makiko Tanaka dismissed him as "a deluded senior citizen".