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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, April 20, 2002

ROUNDUP: Japanese Prime Minister Hit by New Scandal

Japan's upper house speaker offered to resign on Friday, dealing another blow to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose administration has been rocked by a series of money scandals involving key politicians in recent months.


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Japan's upper house speaker offered to resign on Friday, dealing another blow to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose administration has been rocked by a series of money scandals involving key politicians in recent months.

Yutaka Inoue, President of the House of Councilors, on Friday decided to step down over the allegation that his policy secretary took 64 million yen (492,000 U.S. dollars) from a construction company.

Japan's weekly magazine Sunday Mainichi earlier this month reported that Inoue's policy secretary received the money from a contractor in Chiba Prefecture between July 1999 and March 2000 inconnection with a public works project.

Inoue denied the report on Thursday but was forced to resign under pressures of opposition parties.

Inoue thus became the first upper house head in Japan to step down over scandals. His resignation could fuel public anger against the ruling bloc led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Koizumi's cabinet.

The affair is the latest in a rash of scandals involving members of the Koizumi's ruling LDP since Koizumi fired his foreign minister Makiko Tanaka late January.

Earlier this year, LDP heavyweight Muneo Suzuki was forced to leave the party over allegations that he had meddled in the awarding of government aid projects.

Pro-reformer Koichi Kato, a long time ally of Koizumi and former LDP secretary, were also forced to quit the party and parliament over the alleged misuse of public fund and arrest of a former aide accused of tax evasion.

As Japanese voters are exposed to almost daily diet of scandals,Koizumi's support rate tumbled to 40 percent or so from a 90 percent when he took office a year ago.

Koizumi was criticized for being too slow in dealing with theseproblems. Many observers say Koizumi failed to show the sort of leadership sought by voters who are fed up with LDP's corruption.

All these scandals are threatening to undermine Koizumi's ability to implement his reform agenda of ridding Japan of massivepublic debt and recovering the stagnant economy.

Although Japan's economy is beginning to show signs of bottoming out, analysts said the structural reforms are now all the more urgent to get the economy back on the road of real recovery.

It is high time for Koizumi to quickly shrug off all these scandals and go ahead with his structural reforms. It will not be easy for the embattled prime minister.


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