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Japanese PM to Step Down, Possibly in April: Lawmaker
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has decided to step down soon after the passage of the fiscal 2001 budget through the Diet (parliament), possibly in April, Kyodo News reported Wednesday, quoting a lawmaker close to Mori.
Meanwhile, officials of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said party executives hope Mori will make an announcement to the party's convention to be held next Tuesday, and coordination toward that goal is under way, the report said.
But in public, Mori denied that he plans to resign.
"I have no such plans at the moment," Mori told a House of Councilors Budget Committee session, referring to a report by Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper, that he has told his top aides he will resign after the budget and related bills clear the Diet.
"With various pending issues on the table, I believe I must attend to Diet affairs with leadership," Mori said.
Executives of the coalition parties, however, want Mori to announce his resignation next Monday, either at a meeting of the government, the LDP and its two coalition partners, the New Komeito party and the New Conservative Party, or at a meeting of secretaries general of LDP local chapters, the report said.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda hinted Wednesday that Mori may make an announcement on his resignation before the LDP convention.
Asked about that possibility, Fukuda said, "Those issues will be discussed while debating (how to run) the party convention.
Nothing has been decided yet."
Despite surviving a no-confidence motion on Monday, Mori has been facing mounting pressure to resign from ruling bloc lawmakers who are worried they will take a beating in July's upper house election if the unpopular prime minister stays in office.
Public support rate for Mori's cabinet, around 40 percent when he took office in April last year, have dropped to single-digit levels in recent surveys.
Mori, who has been repeatedly criticized for verbal blunders, sparked fresh outrage last month for continuing to play a golf game for two hours after being informed about the sinking of a Japanese training ship in a collision with a US Navy submarine off Hawaii.
The embattled Japanese prime minister was also dealt a heavy blow with last week's arrest of former LDP heavyweight Masakuni Murakami in connection with a bribery scandal involving the mutual aid foundation KSD.
The LDP plans to hold a party presidential race once Mori resigns. The winner of the race would become Japan's next prime minister as the ruling bloc holds a majority in the House of Representatives, which has the final say in selecting a prime minister.
According to the report, among possible candidates for the post are former LDP Secretary General Hiromu Nonaka, former Health and Welfare Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Ryutaro Hashimoto, minister in charge of administrative reform and a former prime minister.
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