Japanese voters want the ruling party to form a coalition with its main rival instead of governing on its own, a poll showed yesterday, as pressure mounted on Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit and clear the way for smoother policymaking.
Kan’s early exit would ease the way for a coalition with the main opposition party that could enact a bill enabling Japan to issue more debt to fund this year’s US$1 trillion budget.
A “grand coalition” between the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could also pass an extra budget to pay for rebuilding large areas of the northeast coast devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Kan, already unpopular before the quake struck, has seen his ratings tumble further because of his perceived mishandling of the recovery and continuing radiation leaks at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where the tsunami knocked out reactor cooling systems.
The opposition, which controls parliament’s upper house and can block bills, has refused to cooperate with the government in enacting key legislation as long as Kan remains in power.
In a poll by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, 36 percent of voters said they wanted a coalition of the two biggest parties once Kan steps down.
Only 13 percent favored a government led by the DPJ. The same percentage wanted a government led by the opposition LDP.
A further 33 percent said they would favor another form of -government. This generally refers to a realignment of parties or support for the handful of smaller groupings in parliament.
On Sunday, the DPJ’s No. 2 official, Katsuya Okada, said a temporary coalition would be needed to implement policies given that the hung parliament might continue until the next upper house election in 2013.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, addressing reporters yesterday, called for speedy policy decisions, but declined to elaborate when asked about the possibility of a coalition.
“It’s desirable to have a structure in which we have broad cooperation in parliament,” Edano said. “The party is working out details.”
Kan, Japan’s fifth leader in as many years, survived a no--confidence motion in parliament on Thursday last week after promising critics in his own party he would quit.
He then angered many by hinting he wanted to keep his job into the new year to deal with the most pressing problems, especially the radiation crisis, with hopes that a stable shutdown of the damaged reactors can be achieved by then.
However, with a stalemate in parliament, polls have showed voters more receptive to the possibility of a grand coalition to break policy deadlocks. It is unclear, however, whether a temporary grouping could tackle longer-term problems, such as huge public debt, now twice the size of the US$5 trillion economy.
While the LDP has called for Kan to quit by the end of the month, analysts say his departure could take longer as the DPJ tries to find a successor and review policies criticized by the LDP that put more money in the hands of consumers.
“None of the contenders has strong public support,” said Tetsuro Kato, political science professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University. “Negotiations could also take time as parties try to sort out who will be in the coalition, who would get Cabinet posts and how long the coalition will last.”
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