Kan faces renewed calls for early resignation+

TOKYO, June 3 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday faced renewed calls for his resignation in the immediate future from both ruling and opposition lawmakers, only a day after he survived a no-confidence motion in parliament.
There are no signs that Kan will be able to get out of the current morass as even members of his Cabinet have started to push him into corner, with Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto, who is also in charge of disaster management, saying the premier should be replaced by the end of this month.
Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto told a news conference that it would be better for Kan to resign by the end of August.
Kan's remarks Thursday night suggesting he plans to remain prime minister until around January have triggered further political strife, at a time when Japan can ill afford to delay tackling the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and reconstructing a broad swath of the northeastern region devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Ruling party lawmakers who helped Kan at the last minute to vote down the opposition-sponsored motion in the House of Representatives on the premise that he would step down soon say they are angry, claiming they have been duped by him.
''He should not act like a crook,'' Yukio Hatoyama, who was prime minister prior to Kan, told reporters.
Hatoyama urged Kan to resign soon, saying, ''If he does not stick to his promise, I am determined to take action accordingly.''
Hatoyama said he will call for a general assembly of all Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers from both the lower and upper houses of parliament to grill Kan if he refuses to heed calls for his early resignation.
In contrast to the rising tensions in political circles, the general public, weary of seeing a rapid succession of Japanese prime ministers over many years, appears more composed.
In an opinion poll conducted by Kyodo News, 48.1 percent said Kan should quit, but 45.1 percent said his resignation is unnecessary.
Moreover, the poll, conducted from Thursday, after the no-confidence motion was voted down, to Friday, showed that the support rating for Kan's Cabinet has risen to 33.4 percent from 28.1 percent in mid-May.
On Thursday, Hatoyama played a pivotal role in changing the minds of many lawmakers of Kan's DPJ who had planned to vote in favor of the motion out of frustration over his handling of the triple disaster.
Just ahead of the vote, Hatoyama held talks with Kan and told a meeting of the DPJ that they had agreed on when the premier would resign.
Hatoyama said the agreement was for Kan, who has been in office for almost a year, to step down once a bill for reconstruction of the disaster-stricken northeastern region is passed by the Diet and the prospects of drawing up the second extra budget for fiscal 2011 become bright.
Hatoyama later told reporters that the timing of the resignation he had in mind is ''within June.''
At the same meeting, Kan expressed his intention to quit once he makes tangible progress in containing the nuclear crisis and reconstructing the northeastern region.
But Kan left the timing of his resignation vague.
After the motion was defeated by 293 to 152 votes, Kan suggested at a late night news conference that he is considering staying on at least until the plant's overheating reactors are stabilized, which is expected to occur by January based on the road map of the complex's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.
If the motion had been passed, Kan would have been forced to choose between his Cabinet's resignation en masse or dissolving the House of Representatives for an election.
During a Diet panel session on Friday, Kan was repeatedly asked to clarify when exactly he is planning to step down, but he refused to do so.
Hatoyama, who had himself planned to oust Kan until their meeting, and many other lawmakers are increasingly discontent with the prime minister's indecisiveness over the timing of his resignation.
''It is unfortunate that there is a gap in perception,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference on Friday. ''When to resign will only be decided by the premier.''
The top government spokesman also apologized to the public for the strong distrust of politics that has been fostered.
In Singapore, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa told reporters accompanying him that he had brokered the deal between Kan and Hatoyama.
Kitazawa said the memorandum exchanged between Kan and Hatoyama was created based on the assumption that the premier would step down.
Given that the controversy over the interpretation of their agreement is intensifying, Kitazawa said that Kan and Hatoyama should hold talks again.
Along with DPJ lawmakers who have been critical of Kan, opposition parties, which control the upper house, are preparing to become even more hostile to his Cabinet.
The Liberal Democratic Party is now exploring the possibility of submitting a censure motion against Kan in the House of Councillors.
Sadakazu Tanigaki, who heads the main opposition party, said it is hard to understand why Kan is trying to cling on to power.
Tanigaki told an LDP meeting that a premier should not remain in power for a long time once he or she expresses an intention to step down.
The LDP leader also said Kan is running a lame-duck government so there is no room for the opposition camp to cooperate with it.
==Kyodo
2011-06-03 23:58:08