Koizumi set to form new cabinet Nov. 19

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 10, 2003

Koizumi set to form new cabinet Nov. 19

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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is set to form his next cabinet Nov. 19 after the three ruling coalition parties retained a majority in Sunday's House of Representatives general election, coalition lawmakers said Monday.

Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Parry (LDP) and its two junior partners agreed at a morning meeting of their secretaries general and Diet affairs chiefs to maintain the tripartite coalition and to begin making arrangements to convene a special parliamentary session Nov. 19 to form the new cabinet immediately after reelecting Koizumi as premier, the lawmakers said.

The coalition parties will hold a meeting of their leaders, including Koizumi, in the afternoon to make their final decision.

Speaking at a news conference, Koizumi said he intends to maintain the governing coalition with the two partners -- the New Komeito party and New Conservative Party.

In Sunday's election, the three parties obtained a majority in the 480-seat House of Representatives with a margin large enough to give them control over all parliamentary committees that deliberate legislation.

Since Koizumi reshuffled his cabinet after the LDP presidential election in September, he plans to reappoint all the ministers in the current cabinet roster when he starts a new government.

The government is expected to endorse, possibly Friday, a basic plan providing details of sending civilians and troops to Iraq, a dispatch which the government says is to help with Iraq's reconstruction.

The endorsement of the plan may generate some heat between the governing coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which emerged from the election as the biggest opposition force to confront the LDP in postwar Japanese political history. The DPJ opposes dispatching the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq.

But the coalition parties agreed in the Monday meeting to convene the Diet for only about three days and confirmed no deliberations will be held on the plan during the session after the government explains it.

The latest tally of Diet strength shows the LDP with 240 lower house seats, including three lawmakers who ran as independents but joined the LDP immediately after the election. The New Komeito party has 34 lower house seats and the NCP four. Together they hold 278 seats in the lower house, down from 287 before the election.

The DPJ won 177 seats, 40 more than the 137 it had before.

The big losers were the smaller parties. The Japanese Communist Party saw its lower house presence cut by more than half, from 20 to nine, while the Social Democratic Party suffered a greater loss, falling from 18 seats to six.

Among the governing parties, the LDP has now seven fewer seats, falling to 240 from 247, but the New Komeito party increased its number of seats to 34 from 31. The number of NCP lower house members fell from nine to four. Among those losing their seats was NCP leader Hiroshi Kumagai.

Kumagai has expressed his intention to step down as party chief.

Source: Agencies

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