Japan welcomes Mori's signal to resign

Mori is expected to stay in office until early April

In this story: Lingering concerns on economic reform No leading contenders to succeed Mori RELATED STORIES

TOKYO, Japan -- Japanese voters have expressed relief after Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori signaled his intention to resign.

Mori, whose repeated gaffes have pushed popular support ratings below 10 percent, gave a commitment to leave office in a closed-door meeting Saturday night with four ruling Liberal Democratic Party officials.

Under Mori's regime, Japan's fledging economic recovery has shown signs of slowing to a halt. And weeks of political guessing over the leader's future helped send the country's stock market tumbling to a 15-year low.

With such a legacy, many voters welcomed the news of Mori's imminent departure.

"All these problems are Mori's fault," Tsutomu Koide, a 58-year-old company worker, said Sunday. "I'm so glad he's on his way out."

The nationwide Asahi newspaper in a Sunday morning editorial also pegged the blame for Japan's fiscal woes on Mori.

"Mori's lack of vision has contributed to Japan's economic malaise," the newspaper said. "By firming his intention to step down, he has given us hope that things will start moving once again."

Lingering concerns on economic reform

The Nihon Keizai financial daily noted in a commentary that the new administration will have to wrestle with massive bad debt at financial institutions and carry out important reform in the social security system.

"There are plenty of unresolved economic policy issues to be dealt with," the newspaper said.

Mori was expected to stay in office until early April to give the ruling coalition time to select a replacement and avoid confusion in an upcoming summit with U.S. President George W. Bush.

A general vote within the ruling coalition to select a new leader was likely be held next month, the nationwide Yomiuri and Mainichi newspapers said.

That would make Mori a lame-duck leader for several more weeks -- a period in which strong leadership is needed to prevent Japan from slipping back into recession.

But analysts say that with nationwide elections due in July, the LDP can ill afford to procrastinate if it wants to avoid a humiliation at the polls.

"The issue is how much the LDP can regain the public's trust before the upper house elections," Nobuo Tomita, professor of political science at Tokyo's prestigious Meiji University, said Saturday. "The most important thing is to create a stable government that the people can rely on to get things done."

No leading contenders to succeed Mori

Several names, including that of former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, have been floated as possible candidates, but each has serious drawbacks.

Hashimoto was blamed for a major electoral defeat in 1998 after he decided to raise taxes.

Another possibility, former health minister Junichiro Koizumi, is popular with the public but is mistrusted by many LDP leaders who view him as too reformist-minded.

The LDP has so alienated the public that most people predict the party will take a beating in July's polls no matter what it does until then. That would probably cause the prime minister to "take responsibility" for the defeat, curtailing the new leader's term to a mere few months.

The party's fitful search also underscores the difficulty it has had to respond to the public's longing for fresh faces and more transparency in politics.

Mori was himself chosen behind closed doors after his predecessor, Keizo Obuchi, was felled by a stroke. The back-room dealing caused the public to turn against the Mori administration even before it was launched.

Analysts and opposition politicians were quick to rap Mori for revealing his intention to resign through political colleagues rather than directly addressing the public.

"He could have held a press conference, but he chose not to. Such ambiguity is pathetic," Naoto Kan, a leader in the largest opposition Democratic Party, said on a Sunday talk show on public broadcaster NHK.

Speculation over when Mori would resign had been intensifying for weeks.

Mori took office last April and his tenure has since been marred by scandals and frequent verbal blunders, including remarks similar to the jingoism of Japan's wartime leaders.

His single-digit public support ratings have made him the second-most unpopular prime minister Japan has had since World War II.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Japanese leader Mori barely survives no-confidence vote
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Japanese Prime Minister's Office
The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan

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