Opposition lawmakers call for Yosano to resign as Diet member+

TOKYO, Jan. 15 Kyodo -
Senior lawmakers of the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party demanded
Saturday that Kaoru Yosano, a former LDP member who joined the reshuffled
Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan from outside the ruling Democratic Party of
Japan on Friday, should resign as a House of Representatives member.
''He should remove his Diet lapel pin if he is joining the DPJ government which
he had harshly criticized,'' LDP Secretary General Nobuteru Ishihara told
reporters in Tokyo. ''I cannot trust him as a person and it would be difficult
to forge a relationship of trust.''
Ichita Yamamoto, chairman of the LDP Policy Board in the House of Councillors,
said on a TV program, ''Mr. Yosano has just written a book that said the
Japanese economy will collapse under the DPJ government. He is a Cabinet member
against whom I personally want to submit a censure motion from the start'' of
the ordinary Diet session in January.
Yosano, a veteran lawmaker and fiscal conservative, was newly appointed as the
economic and fiscal policy minister after leaving a tiny opposition party which
he helped to create last year.
In the 2009 general election, in which the DPJ wrested power from the
long-ruling LDP, Yosano secured his lower house seat as an LDP member through
proportional representation. But he left the LDP to establish the Sunrise Party
in April 2010.
Yukio Edano, newly appointed chief Cabinet secretary, told reporters that the
opposition party members should observe how Yosano handles his job as a new
minister instead of just criticizing him.
Yoshito Sengoku, the DPJ's acting leader who was replaced by Edano in the
reshuffle, said on another TV program it will be a ''great misfortune for the
people'' if there is no talk about policy but just about the question of
consistency involving what Yosano has said in the past and his joining the
Cabinet.
New Justice Minister Satsuki Eda expressed hope that more opposition lawmakers
would follow in the footsteps of Yosano.
''As one door closes, another one opens,'' Eda said in a speech in Okayama.
''If the first such person was Mr. Yosano, the door must be opened for him,''
he said, suggesting that he values Kan's decision to appoint Yosano to the
Cabinet.
A day after the Cabinet was launched many of its members appeared on TV shows
Saturday to promote the government's key policies.
Among them, former Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii, who was appointed deputy
chief Cabinet secretary, said that a possible consumption tax hike should be
used to cover the nation's social welfare costs, not to reduce the fiscal
deficit.
He said that from past experience, raising the consumption tax to cover the
fiscal deficit ''does not work,'' and added that people must be convinced
before going through with a sales tax hike.
Meanwhile, Kan decided to appoint Osamu Fujimura, former vice minister for
health, labor and welfare, as the DPJ's new acting secretary general, the post
previously held by Edano, and to name DPJ Vice President Hajime Ishii as the
party's election bureau chief, ruling party sources said.
==Kyodo
2011-01-15 22:39:33