Upper house passes censure motion against Aso, LDP in deeper disarray

+

TOKYO, July 14 Kyodo -
Japan's opposition parties passed a nonbinding censure motion against Prime
Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday, while the turmoil in Aso's ruling Liberal
Democratic Party has deepened with two party bigwigs expressing their
intentions to leave their posts.
Following the approval of the censure motion at the House of Councillors, the
opposition bloc plans to boycott all Diet proceedings, setting the stage for an
election showdown even before Aso's planned Diet dissolution next week for an
Aug. 30 election.
The Democratic Party of Japan-led opposition camp criticized Aso for his
repeated policy flip-flops over his cash handout scheme and a plan to reshuffle
the top LDP posts as well as a spate of his economic stimulus packages
involving what the camp claims is pork-barrel spending.
In a separate move, the ruling bloc-dominated House of Representatives voted
down a no-confidence motion against Aso's Cabinet with a majority vote of
ruling coalition lawmakers earlier in the day.
In a meeting of the main opposition DPJ, DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada
told the party members, ''The Diet is effectively over today. I would like you
to go home and start thoroughly campaigning (toward the national election).''
The refusal to participate in Diet deliberations would result in the scrapping
of a total of 17 bills currently in parliament, including a key bill to enable
inspections of North Korean cargo ships in line with a U.N. Security Council
resolution.
But the ruling LDP-New Komeito bloc got the cargo bill passed anyway at the
lower house's plenary session convened in the evening only to be abandoned with
no deliberations scheduled at the opposition-controlled upper house.
While stressing that he takes the censure motion seriously, Aso in the evening
complained about the dim prospects for the bill clearing the upper house. ''I
have problems with seeing Japan, which is most affected (by the situation
surrounding North Korea), unable to respond (to the U.N. resolution),'' he told
reporters.
The endorsement of the censure motion was the first since one against Aso's
predecessor Yasuo Fukuda cleared the upper chamber in June 2008, a move that
did not have an immediate impact on Fukuda's administration.
The motion against Fukuda was the first ever under the 1947 Constitution.
In the upper house, Azuma Koshiishi, head of the chamber's caucus of the DPJ,
urged Aso to abide by his earlier pledge to dissolve the lower house and do so
immediately.
The vote on the censure motion was 132 votes in favor to 106 votes against.
''Over four years, the LDP-New Komeito coalition has rotated the premiership
three times without holding a general election or seeking a public mandate,''
he said. ''It would be an act of dishonesty if the coalition changed the
premier for a fourth time when the terms of lower house members are set to
expire shortly.''
His remarks were an apparent attempt to discourage lingering moves within the
LDP to pick a new leader to replace the unpopular Aso, as any new leader could
affect the opposition's chances of ousting the LDP from power.
Even after Aso officially announced Monday that he will dissolve the lower
house as early as July 21 for a general election Aug. 30, the turmoil in the
ruling party has shown no signs of abating but rather has been growing.
On Tuesday, two LDP heavyweights -- LDP Election Strategy Council Chairman
Makoto Koga and the LDP's upper house caucus chief Hidehisa Otsuji -- expressed
their intention to resign from their respective posts to take the blame for
consecutive defeats in recent local elections.
Aso and other party executives are trying to persuade them to stay on.
Concerning Koga, Aso said, ''I have no intention of receiving his
resignation.''
''If someone has to take the responsibility for the outcomes of the series of
the local elections, the election strategy council chairman should not take it
alone, but all of us should,'' he added.
In other anti-Aso moves, former LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa at a
party meeting Tuesday afternoon also pressed the LDP to reshuffle its
leadership before the election, suggesting afresh that Aso be replaced.
Members of Aso's Cabinet have denounced the opposition's move aimed at
hampering Diet deliberations, with Seiko Noda, state minister in charge of
consumer affairs, expressing concern that the move would only produce ''a
disappointing result for the public.''
The opposition parties submitted the no-confidence and censure motions Monday
to parliament, one day after the LDP suffered an embarrassing loss in Sunday's
Tokyo metropolitan assembly election to the DPJ.
The no-confidence motion against Aso's Cabinet was rejected by a vote of 333 to
139 at the lower house.
In a speech in the lower chamber, Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the DPJ, called on
Aso to dissolve the lower house earlier than his planned dissolution next week
to seek a public mandate immediately.
''His policies have produced no results,'' the DPJ president said. ''The only
choice Prime Minister Aso has is to dissolve the chamber immediately.''
LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda launched a counterattack against
Hatoyama, mentioning a scandal in which his political funds report listed some
dead people as donors.
==Kyodo
2009-07-14 21:57:12