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Abe battles resignation calls
30/07/2007 08:45 - (SA)
Tokyo - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday resisted calls to resign after voters handed his conservative party one of the most crushing defeats in its history.
The Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955, failed for the first time to be the largest party in a chamber of parliament, with the left-centre opposition taking control of the upper house.
Abe has ruled out quitting or calling a new general election, setting the stage for political gridlock in the world's second largest economy. Share prices in Tokyo slipped to four-month lows in early trade.
The Liberal Democrats' leadership met on Monday and agreed to keep Abe, who got to work on reshuffling his scandal-plagued cabinet, domestic news agencies said.
"We will take the election results humbly and strive to improve," chief government spokesperson Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference.
Scandals and gaffes
Shiozaki blamed the election defeat on a series of scandals and gaffes by top ministers rather than the agenda of Abe, who has championed conservative causes such as rewriting the post-World War II constitution.
Abe's approval ratings nosedived this year when the pensions agency admitted misplacing millions of payment records - a sensitive issue in a rapidly ageing country.
But rebels within the party openly questioned the premier's insistence on staying on.
"Many voters decided that Prime Minister Abe, or his government, isn't qualified for the job," said Taro Kono, a maverick lawmaker from the party's liberal wing.
"He cannot carry on like before," Kono told Fuji television. "The problems in his cabinet took a heavy toll on votes. He must correct what he has to correct."
Some major newspapers also said that Abe lost credibility after his Liberal Democratic-led coalition lost nearly half of the seats it was defending in the upper house.
"People said 'no' to Abe's agenda which is focused on ideology and not on their everyday lives," the Mainichi Shimbun said in an editorial.
Japanese stocks slumped on fears that the upheaval could stall economic reforms, and due to gloom over heavy losses on Wall Street, dealers said. But the yen shrugged off the political uncertainty.
- AFP
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