Ex-state minister Watanabe to submit letter Tues. to quit LDP

TOKYO, Jan. 12 Kyodo -
Former administrative reform minister Yoshimi Watanabe said Monday he will
submit a letter Tuesday to leave the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Watanabe said he made the decision because his proposal to regulate
''amakudari'' postretirement jobs for senior bureaucrats was ignored by Prime
Minister Taro Aso, who is also LDP president.
''I have decided that I'd like to stir a public movement by going out (of the
party) first by myself,'' Watanabe told reporters in Otawara, Tochigi
Prefecture, after attending a meeting of his supporters.
''Regarding the reform of the public servant system which I have treated as a
matter of life or death, I made the proposal (to Aso) to retract easing of
amakudari regulations, but it was ignored and denied,'' Watanabe said.
The amakudari practice involves former senior bureaucrats taking high-ranking
post-retirement jobs in entities they formerly oversaw.
Watanabe also said he would like to show his ''will of protest'' against a 2
trillion yen cash payout plan which is included in a second supplementary
budget for this fiscal year to be voted on at a plenary session of the House of
Representatives on Tuesday.
On Watanabe's move, Aso said at a TV program, ''It is an individual matter,''
while expressing a view that no other LDP lawmakers will follow him.
Watanabe has declared he would leave the party unless his demands, including
calling an early lower house election and canceling the controversial cash
benefit program, are seriously considered.
Watanabe has been urging Aso to retract a Cabinet decision allowing the prime
minister to permit former public servants to be placed at outside
post-retirement jobs and a government ordinance allowing ministries to help
introduce former bureaucrats to other jobs two or more times.
Watanabe assumed the ministerial post in December 2006 under then Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe.
==Kyodo