Embattled Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s faced growing pressure yesterday from within his own party to resign ahead of elections next month over his broken campaign promise to move a US Marine base off Okinawa.
Hatoyama’s approval ratings have plummeted as he backtracked on the vow to move Marine Air Station Futenma off the island, reinforcing his public image as an indecisive leader after only eight months in office.
Many analysts say he may well step down ahead of upper house elections, likely to be held in the middle of next month — or perhaps right after the elections if his party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DJP), does poorly. If he does resign soon, he would be the fourth Japanese prime minister to do so in four years.
Hatoyama has insisted he will stay on, but his comments yesterday seemed less forceful.
“We will stand up against this national crisis,” Hatoyama said, apparently referring to the difficult situation facing the government.
We will do “what’s best” for the Japanese people, he said.
He said he would meet with senior party members later yesterday to discuss political management ahead of the elections, and major Japanese newspapers speculated that those gathered would debate whether — or when — he might resign.
His government came to power amid high hopes last September after the DJP soundly defeated the long-ruling conservatives in lower house elections.
But his public image has tumbled amid a political funding scandal and perceived inconsistency and indecision, particularly on his reversal on Futenma. He now says he’ll go along with the 2006 agreement to move the base to a northern part of Okinawa, infuriating residents who want it off the island entirely.
Okinawa alone houses more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan, stationed under a bilateral security alliance.
Hatoyama’s three-way coalition was cut to two members over the weekend when a junior partner, the Social Democrats, withdrew after the prime minister expelled its leader Mizuho Fukushima, who rejected the Futenma decision, from the Cabinet.
The DPJ and a remaining coalition partner still hold a majority in both houses of the Diet — though just barely in the less powerful upper house.
Fukushima’s dismissal enhanced her public standing as a politician who stood up for her convictions and reinforced perceptions of Hatoyama’s wishy-washiness.
The Yomiuri Shimbun, citing its own survey conducted on Monday, said nine out of 43 upper house lawmakers from Hatoyama’s party seeking re-election next month said Hatoyama’s resignation ahead of the poll is unavoidable, while 13 others urged him to make his own decision.
But some Cabinet ministers defended Hatoyama.
Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan, a man some have speculated might become the next prime minister, said he has supported Hatoyama’s leadership and “that has not changed.”
Japanese Transport Minister Seiji Maehara said he was against frequent leadership change even though Hatoyama should take responsibility for his recent political bungling by staying on to do a better job.
Public support for the current government has slid to 17 percent, down 4 percentage points from a previous poll just two weeks ago, according to the latest survey by the Asahi Shimbun, published on Monday.
Disapproval rating jumped to 70 percent from 64 percent.
In a weekend telephone survey of 1,033 voter households, Kyodo News agency found that more than half said Hatoyama should step down, while 44 percent disagreed. Kyodo did not give a margin of error, but a poll of that size would normally have a 5 percentage point sampling error.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS