Kan survives no-confidence motion at last minute+

TOKYO, June 2 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Naoto Kan survived a no-confidence motion in the lower house of parliament on Thursday after announcing his intention to quit once he makes tangible progress in containing a nuclear crisis and rebuilding Japan following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Kan's last-minute announcement on his political fate after a year in office changed the minds of many lawmakers who had planned to vote in favor of the motion.
''I want the younger generation to take over my duties after I fulfill the role I should play'' in reconstructing Japan, Kan said at a meeting of his ruling party shortly after noon, just ahead of the vote.
Until the announcement, a significant number of lawmakers in Kan's Democratic Party of Japan, especially those who have close ties with rival Ichiro Ozawa, were poised to back the no-confidence motion, sponsored by major opposition parties.
If it had passed, Kan would have been forced to choose between his Cabinet's resignation en masse or dissolving the House of Representatives for an election.
There is already controversy among both ruling and opposition lawmakers, however, over when Kan should resign as it is difficult to judge at this point what sort of criteria should be used to evaluate that ongoing reconstruction efforts have borne fruit.
Kan left the timing of his resignation ambiguous, saying the end of his premiership will come when the prospects for rebuilding become bright.
But Kan signaled during a late night news conference that he has no immediate plans to resign. He repeatedly said it would be irresponsible for him to leave his job before the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's overheating reactors are brought under control.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has set the target of containing the crisis by bringing the reactors into the process of so-called ''cold shutdown'' by at least January.
Moreover, Kan said that he plans to extend the current Diet session beyond June 22 to December, which also indicates that he is willing to stay on for the time being.
Ahead of the vote, Yukio Hatoyama, who was prime minister prior to Kan, told reporters they had struck a deal that Kan would step down when the formulation of the second extra budget for fiscal 2011 to secure more money for post-quake measures becomes visible on the horizon.
Hatoyama said it would mean Kan, Japan's fifth prime minister since 2006, could depart as early as the end of June.
But within the DPJ, differences of opinion have already emerged over the interpretation of the timing.
DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada told reporters that Kan and Hatoyama have agreed that it is ''important'' to draw up the budget at an early date but there is no condition for Kan to quit once the formulation is completed.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Kan and Hatoyama confirmed the basic principles of how to run the ruling party, noting that the document exchanged by the two makes no mention of his possible resignation.
Earlier, Ozawa and at least 50 of his loyalists who have been critical of Kan's handling of the aftermath of the natural and nuclear disasters were prepared to vote in favor of the motion and there were signs that other DPJ lawmakers could follow suit.
But many of them eventually voted against the motion and there were only two pro-Ozawa lawmakers who backed the move to oust Kan. Ozawa himself and 14 of his allies were either absent or abstained from voting.
The lower house is controlled by Kan's DPJ, but he was at risk of losing the premiership if around 80 DPJ rebels in the 480-seat chamber had voted in favor of the no-confidence motion.
The motion, submitted Wednesday by the Liberal Democratic Party and two other smaller opposition parties, was defeated by 293 to 152 votes, while a total of 33 lawmakers were absent or abstained from voting.
The DPJ leadership decided to expel the two rebels and is considering suspending the party membership of Ozawa's 14 disciples. As to Ozawa, the leadership will not likely penalize him as his DPJ membership has already been suspended until his trial over a political funds scandal is concluded, some party executives said.
Despite Kan's survival, the DPJ, which swept to power in 2009, will likely be weakened as internal bickering was so intense prior to the vote.
Ozawa and his allies had hinted at the possibility of forming a new party in the event the motion was rejected.
For a while, Kan outlived what has now become the customary one-year stint of Japan's revolving-door prime ministers. But the difficult situation also remains the same for his government.
It faces a host of challenges, ranging from passing key bills in the divided Diet, where opposition parties dominate the upper house, and pushing through tax and social security reforms, in addition to bringing to a close the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years since Chernobyl at the Fukushima plant and rebuilding the disaster-stricken region.
Kan and DPJ executives urged DPJ lawmakers who were still undecided with regard to the vote not to join the rebellion, orchestrated by Ozawa, who lost to Kan in the DPJ's presidential election last September and was indicted in January over the money scandal.
They argued that the government, first and foremost, needs to help people affected by the disasters and it is not the time for a power struggle in Japan.
Still, given that who may replace Kan is still up in the air, the DPJ's internal strife and its tensions with the LDP, the New Komeito and other opposition parties will likely persist.
Kan was facing strong calls for his resignation even before the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami struck the Tohoku region that left around 25,000 people dead or missing and forced nearly 100,000 to live in temporary shelters.
The political cease-fire lasted for some time. But nearly three months after the disasters, many lawmakers have again begun to express frustration over his leadership, saying that reconstruction of the region is much slower than hoped.
==Kyodo
2011-06-02 23:56:02