10TH LD: Hatoyama steps down, new Cabinet to be formed on Monday+

TOKYO, June 2 Kyodo -
(EDS: INSERTING MORE INFO ON POST-HATOYAMA MOVES IN UPPER PART OF STORY, ADDING
DETAILS)
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Wednesday he will step down ahead of a
closely watched election expected next month, only about eight months after
taking office, citing falling public support triggered by his failure to
resolve a dispute over a U.S. military base relocation and money scandals.
The Democratic Party of Japan, headed by Hatoyama, will choose his successor on
Friday and a new Cabinet will likely be formed on Monday if all goes smoothly,
said DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, regarded as the most powerful figure
in the party, who has also decided to resign.
Finance Minister Naoto Kan, who is also deputy prime minister, is viewed as the
front-runner to succeed Hatoyama.
Hatoyama abruptly announced his resignation in the morning, although up until
Tuesday, he and his Cabinet members had suggested they would continue to try to
win back public confidence.
Hatoyama is the fourth straight Japanese prime minister to have stayed in power
only about a year or less, reigniting worries about the future of a country
fraught with problems ranging from a two-decade-old economic slump to an aging
population.
''The public has gradually refused to hear me. It's a shame and I'm solely to
blame for it,'' Hatoyama said at an urgent general assembly of DPJ lawmakers,
his eyes glistening with tears.
Hatoyama said the public had turned its back on him mainly for two reasons --
the fiasco over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station,
which cost his ruling coalition the loss of the Social Democratic Party, and
''money and politics'' scandals involving himself and Ozawa.
Ozawa, who orchestrated the party's landslide victory in last year's general
election, is also stepping down, Hatoyama said at the general assembly in the
morning, which was broadcast live nationwide.
Hatoyama said he told Ozawa, ''I will resign from my job. But I must ask you
also to step down'' from the party's No. 2 post ''for the sake of establishing
a new and cleaner Democratic Party of Japan,'' and that Ozawa has agreed to do
so.
Later in the day, Hatoyama told reporters that he had concluded there seemed to
be no way for him to make the public again listen to him, after starting to
have ''an internal conversation with myself about 10 days or one week ago'' on
whether he should leave office.
''I've judged that my resignation would serve Japan's national interests,''
Hatoyama said at the premier's office, adding he conveyed the intention to
Ozawa on Monday.
Hatoyama said he told Ozawa on Tuesday that he should also no longer be the
DPJ's secretary general.
The 63-year-old premier said he will stay on as a DPJ lawmaker but will not run
in the next lower house election.
''We can't create a political vacuum. We have to decide on the next leader as
soon as possible,'' Ozawa, 68, told reporters, adding he feels responsible for
failing to fully assist Hatoyama as the DPJ's No. 2.
Hatoyama's successor as DPJ chief will be picked Friday at a meeting of DPJ
members from both chambers of the Diet and will later become Japan's new prime
minister.
Kan, 63, after meeting with Hatoyama on Wednesday afternoon, told reporters he
has decided to run in the DPJ's leadership election.
''Good luck,'' Hatoyama said he told Kan, a co-founder of the DPJ who has
headed the party twice since it was established in 1998.
But the outgoing Japanese leader also said he will not try to exercise
influence as a former prime minister for the rest of his political career and
has no plans to name anyone as a possible successor.
Ozawa, despite his departure from the party's No.2 post, will likely have a
great impact on the leader selection, given that he heads an intraparty group
of about 150 DPJ lawmakers, by far the largest within the party which has some
420 Diet members.
Hatoyama's resignation comes amid plunging public support for his Cabinet,
which stood at over 70 percent shortly after the Sept. 16 launch of the
coalition government but has now fallen below 20 percent.
It also comes after the SDP left his ruling coalition Sunday in opposing an
accord with the United States to relocate the Futenma air base within Okinawa.
The small pacifist party had demanded that the base be moved out of the island
prefecture to reduce the heavy U.S. military presence there.
The prime minister had said he would resolve the base dispute by the end of May
by coming up with a relocation plan that can win approval from people in
Okinawa, the DPJ's coalition partners and the United States.
But the government announced the relocation policy on Friday after striking a
deal only with Washington, with Hatoyama sacking SDP chief Mizuho Fukushima
from the post of consumer affairs minister for her refusal to endorse it.
The DPJ formed a new government in partnership with the SDP and the People's
New Party after its landslide victory in last summer's House of Representatives
election, which ended more than half a century of almost continuous rule by the
Liberal Democratic Party.
Before the lower house election, Hatoyama said he was determined to move the
U.S. air base ''at least'' outside the prefecture.
Hatoyama also apologized for a political funds scandal he was embroiled in
having caused public mistrust in politics and the DPJ.
With the change of government, Hatoyama said he was hoping to make Japanese
politics clean but it turned out that his former secretaries were convicted of
falsifying political funds reports.
Many DPJ lawmakers in the upper house whose current six-year terms expire in
July had been pressuring Hatoyama to quit, while many voters have said they
feel he lacks the ability to lead.
The DPJ lawmakers have insisted that Hatoyama give the party a better chance in
the House of Councillors election, widely expected to be held July 11, by
stepping down.
A defeat in the upcoming election would not oust the DPJ from its governing
position as it holds a comfortable majority in the more powerful lower house.
But the DPJ lacks a majority in the upper house and there is a high risk of
policy paralysis if it loses many seats.
Japan has had four prime ministers since Junichiro Koizumi's rare five years in
office ended in 2006, all of whom took office in September.
The DPJ has repeatedly criticized the LDP for failing to build a stable
government, with the country's leader leaving office in quick succession.
Hatoyama, who said a Japanese ''revolution'' would take place after the
landslide victory, pledged to change the way in which Japan is governed, such
as through wresting control of policy formulation from the country's powerful
bureaucracy, by staying in office for a lengthy period.
Hatoyama was saying he would take political responsibility if the public
decides in four years his government has failed to realize the DPJ's election
pledges.
One of the key pledges was to provide allowances to families with children,
which just started Tuesday.
==Kyodo
2010-06-02 23:58:52