Election set for Aug. 30 in showdown between LDP, DPJ

TOKYO, July 13 Kyodo -
Beleaguered Prime Minister Taro Aso set the stage Monday for a showdown with
the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, saying he will dissolve the
House of Representatives later this month to hold a general election on Aug.
30.
The announcement came a day after his Liberal Democratic Party and its junior
coalition partner lost a majority in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly in a
closely watched election as the DPJ garnered a landslide victory with public
support for it continuing to grow.
''I told senior members of the ruling parties today that I will dissolve the
lower house early in the week beginning July 21 and hold a general election on
Aug. 30,'' Aso told reporters.
The four-year term of the 480 lower house members expires Sept. 10, and an
election must be held by October anyway. July 21 is a Tuesday and the first
business day of the week following a national holiday.
Meanwhile, the DPJ and other opposition parties upped the ante on Monday
afternoon by jointly introducing a no-confidence resolution against Aso's
Cabinet to the lower house, while submitting a censure motion against the prime
minister in the House of Councillors.
The resolution is expected to be voted down in the plenary session of the lower
house on Tuesday, where the ruling coalition holds a comfortable majority,
while the opposition-controlled upper house is highly likely to approve the
motion.
The opposition camp plans to stop working with the ruling coalition on all Diet
deliberations once the nonbinding censure motion is adopted, officials in the
camp said.
On Monday evening, Aso brushed aside criticism within his party that the LDP
cannot go into the election with him as party president. ''I know there are
various opinions, but I was elected in a party presidential election last
September. I will work hard by clenching my teeth,'' he told reporters.
''I will not do such an irresponsible thing as throwing away my office by
resigning,'' Aso declared.
Stressing that he has had many pieces of legislation enacted, including the
fiscal 2009 budget, the prime minister said he decided to seek the people's
mandate now.
''What I want to ask the people is which party defends your livelihoods, which
party defends Japan. This is the point of contention,'' he said, faulting the
DPJ for what he termed as lacking specifics to realize its policies and
catering to partisan interests.
Aso is believed to have favored dissolving the chamber as early as Tuesday to
hold a poll on Aug. 8, but senior officials of the LDP and its partner, the New
Komeito party, visited him at the prime minister's office Monday and pressed
him to reconsider, according to coalition officials.
There is still a possibility that while allowing Aso to dissolve the chamber,
LDP members may demand that someone replace him as LDP president to lead the
upcoming election campaign.
Some officials close to Aso have also begun toying with the idea of a Cabinet
reshuffle before the election to contain frustrations within the LDP and enable
the party to wage the election campaign from a stronger position.
At the liaison meeting, held at the prime minister's office at midday, Aso
offered apologies for the crushing defeat in the Tokyo assembly election, in
which the DPJ won enough seats to become the largest party, Deputy Chief
Cabinet Secretary Jun Matsumoto said at a news conference.
''I cannot deny the fact that the so-called trouble within the LDP had a
negative impact on the judgment of Tokyo residents and their election,'' Aso
was quoted as saying. ''In that regard, I'm sorry, as party president.''
As the coalition's loss became clear Sunday evening, Aso telephoned senior LDP
officials and the heads of party factions to say he intended to dissolve the
lower house soon, according to party officials.
But Tadamori Oshima, chairman of the party's Diet affairs committee, expressed
reservations about dissolving the lower house early. ''The LDP must take the
results of the metropolitan assembly election seriously,'' he told reporters.
Similar sentiments were also heard from within New Komeito.
''We would see the same results as in the metropolitan assembly election. (Aso)
should not dissolve (the lower house) until important legislation is enacted,''
Natsuo Yamaguchi, chairman of the party's policy research council, said on a TV
Asahi program.
Given such reservations within the coalition, Aso and senior ruling bloc
officials agreed Monday to push back the election schedule, according to
coalition officials.
Aso and senior officials of the ruling coalition parties then agreed to
dissolve the lower house later this month and hold a general election on Aug.
30, government and coalition officials said.
Meanwhile, the DPJ, the Social Democratic Party and two other opposition
parties faulted the Aso Cabinet for its handling of national administration in
proposing a no-confidence resolution in the lower house.
''The Aso Cabinet just engaged in prolonging its life and implementing a
pork-barrel policy for election gains without gaining the people's mandate. If
the Aso Cabinet goes on, our country will face a national crisis,'' the
proposal said.
Several bills the ruling bloc considers important were pending in the Diet on
Monday, including those to amend the Organ Transplant Law and a special measure
to enable inspections of North Korean cargo in line with a U.N. resolution.
One of the three bills to amend the organ transplant law cleared the upper
house for enactment into law later Monday. A special lower house committee is
deliberating the cargo inspection bill.
Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Monday that the
metropolitan assembly election produced ''grave results'' for the ruling bloc
but denied that Aso would immediately be called on to account for the bloc's
loss.
The DPJ won 54 seats against 38 seats for the LDP and 23 for the New Komeito
party in the election for the 127-seat assembly.
==Kyodo