Japan names new prime minister

Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/06/20106433817147423.html


Naoto Kan has been named head of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and successor to Yukio Hatoyama as the country's next prime minister.

Kan, who served as finance minister and deputy prime minister in Hatoyama's cabinet, won the backing of 290 out of 420 DPJ lawmakers in a vote on Friday.

The only other candidate for the job, little-known Osaka lower house legislator Shinji Tarutoko, won 129 votes.


The Japanese parliament later confirmed Kan as the country's new prime minister, its fifth in less than four years.

Broken promise

Hatoyama, the outgoing prime minister, quit earlier this week amid plummeting popularity ratings after he failed to deliver on a campaign promise to relocate a controversial US military base off the island of Okinawa.

He had been in office for barely eight months.

Hatoyama's cabinet resigned en masse early on Friday morning, clearing the way for the ruling party to vote in a new leader.

As prime minister, Kan will face daunting choices in how to lead the world's number two economy, burdened with massive public debt, sluggish growth and an aging, shrinking population.

He will also have to hit the ground running to rally voter support and revive his party's battered image ahead of next month's elections for the upper house of parliament.

'Money politics'

The July poll is being seen as a referendum on the DPJ's performance since its landslide win in last August's lower house election which unseated the long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

In a speech to DPJ members before Friday's vote Kan urged the party to deal with "money politics" and come clean with voters.

"I will do my utmost, taking up the baton from Prime Minister Hatoyama," he said.

"Our first priority is to regain the trust of the people."

Kan has highlighted economic recovery and growth as the biggest challenges in the months ahead.


Seijiro Takeshita, the director of Mizuho International financial group, told Al Jazeera Kan is "a much better choice than Hatoyama at least he is not a muppet of Ichiro Ozawa".


"He is one of the very few politicians able to increase consumption taxation, by doing so he would utilise that extra revenue in order to create new jobs - the biggest frustration which Kan is going to target the most within the next 12 months," he said.

'Cornerstone'

Japan is the slowest growing economy in Asia, and is expected to be overtaken in size by China sometime this year.

While Japanese exports and factory output have shown some signs of recovery following the global financial crisis, unemployment and deflation are worsening.

"I will tackle and pull Japan out of deflation through comprehensive measures from the government and the Bank of Japan," Kan said in a statement, hinting that he would seek greater co-operation from the central bank.

On foreign policy – a sensitive issue in the wake of the wrangling over the Okinawa base – Kan described Japan's relationship with the US as the "cornerstone" of Japanese diplomacy.

But he also stressed the importance of Japan's ties with regional neighbours.

"With the US-Japan alliance the cornerstone of our diplomacy, we must also work for the prosperity of the Asian region," he said.

Japan prime minister resigns

Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/06/20106205314278472.html



Japan's prime minister has announced his resignation after just eight months in office.

Yukio Hatoyama told a news conference on Wednesday that he would step down over his broken campaign promise to move a US military base off the southern island of Okinawa.

"Since last year's elections, I tried to change politics in which the people of Japan would be the main characters," he said in remarks broadcast nationwide.

But he conceded his efforts were not understood, "mainly because of my failings".

Hatoyama's approval ratings had plummeted after he backtracked last week on a pledge to move the US Futenma Marine Air Station off Okinawa.

His decision to keep the unpopular base on the island, despite strong local opposition, caused a split in his three-party coalition, with the small Social Democrat party quitting the government on Sunday.

The prime minister had faced growing pressure from within his own Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) for him to step down to revive the party's fortunes ahead of an election for the upper house of parliament expected on July 11.

Kingmaker also to step down

With tears in his eyes, Hatoyama told party legislators that he, and Ichiro Ozawa, the party secretary-general seen by many as the real power behind Hatoyama's administration, would both resign.

"In order to revitalise our party, we need to bring back a thoroughly clean Democratic party. I would like to ask your co-operation," Hatoyama said.

A new leader will be chosen in a few days, a party official said, and analysts have tipped Naoto Kan, the finance minister, as the frontrunner to replace Hatoyama.

The Democrats swept to power in August after a landslide election win for parliament's more powerful lower house, ousting the conservative Liberal Democratic party (LDP) after more than 50 years of almost continuous rule.

But doubts over Hatoyama's perceived indecisiveness have eroded the government's approval ratings, with one poll showing support at just 17 per cent.

Some analysts said the change of the party's top two leaders would help restore the Democrats' popularity ahead of the election, although many voters had been outraged when two leaders of previous LDP-led governments quit abruptly after just a year in office.

Katsuhiko Nakamura, the director of research at the Asian Forum Japan, said "although getting rid of Ozawa and Hatoyama won't win back all that support, at least the Democrats will no longer have to be on the defensive during the campaign".

Hidenori Suezawa, the chief strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities, said the move "will put an end to downward trend in the popularity of Democrats", adding that "Ozawa must have made this decision to win the election".

Hatoyama is the fourth Japanese prime minister to resign in four years.

Base backtrack

A political funding scandal embroiling Ozawa and some aides, along with Hatoyama's perceived inconsistency and indecision - particularly on the relocation of the US Marine Air Station Futenma on Okinawa - sent his approval rating plunging.

He had taken office pledging to create a "more equal" relationship with the US and promised to move the marine base off the island, which hosts more than half the 47,000 US troops stationed in Japan under a 50-year-old security agreement.

US military officials argue that it is essential the base remain on Okinawa because its helicopters and air assets support marine infantry units based there. Moving the facility off the island, they say, could slow the marines' co-ordination and response in times of emergency.

Last week Hatoyama said he would go along with a 2006 agreement to move the base to a northern part of Okinawa, infuriating residents who have long complained about noise levels, pollution and crime associated with troops from the base, and want it off the island entirely.

Hatoyama's three-way coalition was cut to two members over the weekend when the Social Democrats withdrew after the prime minister expelled its leader Mizuho Fukushima - who rejected the Futenma decision - from the cabinet.

Fukushima's dismissal enhanced her public standing as a politician who stood up for her convictions and reinforced perceptions of Hatoyama's wishy-washiness.

The DPJ and a remaining coalition partner still hold a majority in both houses of parliament - although just barely in the less powerful upper house.