TOKYO - Japan's new leader, Naoto Kan, will pick a fellow fiscal conservative for the key finance minister post and a critic of an unpopular powerbroker as his party is No. 2 in a bid for voter support in an election next month.

Kan, Japan's fifth leader in three years, has improved his Democratic Party's chances to win an upper house election to avoid policy paralysis, and raised investor hopes that he will rein in a public debt that equals twice the country's GDP.

Support for the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has jumped since it voted in Kan on Friday to replace Yukio Hatoyama, who quit as premier after just eight months in office, his ratings shredded by indecision and broken promises.