Election set for Aug. 30, face-off likely between LDP, DPJ

TOKYO, July 13 Kyodo -
(EDS: ADDING DETAILS)
Beleaguered Prime Minister Taro Aso said Monday that he will dissolve the House
of Representatives next week and hold a general election on Aug. 30, setting
the stage for a poll in which his Liberal Democratic Party is widely expected
to suffer a big loss.
The announcement came a day after the LDP and its junior ruling coalition
partner lost their majority in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly in a contest
regarded as a litmus test for the upcoming lower house election, which must be
held by October.
''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.
July 21 is a Tuesday and the first business day of the week following a
national holiday.
With the long-governing LDP continuing to suffer declining popularity, partly
due to a raft of scandals involving its members, the main opposition Democratic
Party of Japan appears better positioned than ever to wrest power from the
coalition of the LDP and the New Komeito party.
Meanwhile, the DPJ and other opposition parties upped the ante on Monday by
jointly introducing a no-confidence motion against Aso's Cabinet to the lower
house and submitting a censure motion against the prime minister in the House
of Councillors.
The former 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
latter motion.
The opposition camp plans to stop working with the ruling coalition on all Diet
deliberations once the nonbinding censure motion is adopted, forcing a face-off
between the ruling and opposition camps before the first general election in
nearly four years.
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 clench my teeth and work hard,'' he told reporters.
''I will not do such an irresponsible thing as throwing away my office by
resigning,'' Aso declared, referring to his two predecessors, Shinzo Abe and
Yasuo Fukuda, who each resigned abruptly about a year in office.
Stressing that he has had many pieces of legislation enacted, including the
fiscal 2009 budget, Aso said he decided to seek a public 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, criticizing
the DPJ for lacking specifics in its policies and catering to partisan
interests.
Aso is believed to have favored dissolving the chamber as early as Tuesday for
an election on Aug. 8, but senior officials of the LDP and New Komeito visited
him at the prime minister's office Monday and pressed him to reconsider,
according to coalition officials.
There is still a possibility some LDP members may demand that someone replace
Aso as party 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 became 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 an early dissolution. ''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 lower house dissolution to next week
and the election to Aug. 30, according to coalition officials.
Meanwhile, in its no-confidence motion, the DPJ, the Social Democratic Party
and other opposition parties criticized the Aso Cabinet for its handling of
national affairs.
''The Aso Cabinet just engaged in prolonging its life and implementing
pork-barrel policies for election gains without gaining a mandate from the
people. If the Aso Cabinet goes on, our country will face a national crisis,''
the motion 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 to account for the bloc's loss.
The DPJ won 54 seats against 38 seats for the LDP and 23 for New Komeito in the
election for the 127-seat assembly.
==Kyodo