|
Moderate Fukuda takes charge
25/09/2007 19:14 - (SA)
Tokyo - Yasuo Fukuda, a dovish lawmaker who has vowed to heal his party and improve ties with Japan's neighbours, took over as prime minister on Tuesday braced for a bruising fight in a divided parliament.
Fukuda stood up, smiled and bowed to members of parliament around him as he was declared prime minister. He later named a cabinet with few major changes, keeping fellow experienced insiders in key posts.
Shinzo Abe, the outgoing premier whose 365-day rule was dogged by cabinet scandals, gaffes and a heavy election defeat, resigned with his entire cabinet in a formality shortly before the vote.
Abe shook hands with all of his ministers after briefly checking out of the hospital where he has been treated for exhaustion since a day after his abrupt September 12 announcement that he was stepping down.
"I feel extreme regret, and am sorry that I had to resign in the middle of realising my aims," Abe - Japan's youngest leader of recent times - told his final cabinet meeting before walking away with a bouquet of flowers.
Fukuda, a 71-year-old former oilman known for his skills at damage control, won approval as premier in a mostly party-line 338-117 vote by the lower house, where the ruling Liberal Democratic Party holds a strong majority.
The upper chamber, which the LDP and its coalition partner New Komeito crucially lost in an election in July, as expected picked opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa as premier.
Under Japan's parliamentary rules, the lower house reconvened and installed Fukuda as prime minister.
'Unfairness and inequality'
It was the LDP's loss of the upper chamber in the elections, for the first time since the party was created in 1955, that helped tip the balance against Abe.
The opposition has vowed to use its new clout to scuttle the government's agenda and called for snap general elections.
"Regardless of who their leader is, this is still a government of the LDP and New Komeito," Ozawa told reporters after he cordially shook hands with Fukuda.
"The policies of the LDP and New Komeito have twisted Japanese society, creating unfairness and inequality and widening a divide in a wide range of fields," Ozawa said.
Ozawa has vowed to block an extension of a naval mission supporting US-led forces in Afghanistan despite appeals from the United States and other Western nations to continue it.
"I don't think Fukuda's cabinet can last long with a divided parliament. Snap elections will be inevitable, probably next spring," said Jiro Yamaguchi, professor of politics at Hokkaido University.
Abe had cited his failure to continue the mission backing the US-led "war on terror" as a reason for resigning, although he later said he quit for health reasons.
- AFP
|
News
