Budget intensifies dealings to replace Mori

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is now finding himself being eased out of public office

In this story: Backroom dealing Waning popularity RELATED STORIES, SITES

TOKYO, Japan -- The Parliament has passed Japan's new budget, intensifying backroom dealings to replace Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.

The 82 trillion yen (664 billion dollars) budget, which passed the more powerful lower house March 2, passed the upper parliament on Monday 135-106, with 10 lawmakers abstaining.

The outlay, which includes public works spending, funds to encourage computer technology and other measures, is aimed at turning around an economy that has been in a slowdown for more than 10 years.

Japan is currently facing economic uncertainty with a volatile stock market, rising unemployment amid corporate restructuring, and banks saddled with bad debts.

Backroom dealing

The embattled Mori has refused to throw in the towel despite a public clamor for his resignation. Mori promised to leave office as soon as he sees the national outlay approved, and accomplish diplomatic missions.

Now that the budget has been passed, Mori's Liberal Democratic Party colleagues are engaging in backroom talks to choose his successor.

But it is unclear to anyone but top LDP insiders what standards are being used to select candidates to replace Mori and what policies -- if any -- are being discussed behind the scenes.

The person the LDP chooses as its leader automatically becomes prime minister because the party controls the majority in the lower house in a coalition with two other parties.

The LDP rose to power after Japan's defeat in World War II by supporting big business and farmers while the nation was still trying to modernize.

Waning popularity

Although he was supported several times by his party-members in political debates, The LDP is now keen on disposing of him, believing that the leader's waning popularity would lead them to electoral defeat this summer.

Mori became Japan's most unpopular leader, after he was seen as having done little to help the nation's struggling economy.

Mori was also widely criticized for continuing a golf game in Japan after a U.S. submarine sank a Japanese fishing boat off Hawaii, killing nine people.

In another sign of the coalition's unpopularity under Mori, an independent candidate, feminist Akiko Domoto won as governor of Chiba, a prefecture (state) bordering Tokyo on Sunday.

Domoto became the nation's third female governor. With grass-roots support, the 68-year-old former journalist defeated candidates backed by the ruling party and by the opposition.

"I recognize the deep significance of this election," Domoto said Monday in a televised news conference. "Chiba has played a major role in drastically speeding up the move to 21st century politics."

Domoto's victory is disturbing for Japan's political establishment because she is the third grass-roots governor to win recently. A sign denoting that many Japanese are increasingly growing disenchanted with old-style politics.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mori's succession battle turns murkier
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U.S. concerned over Japan's asset woes
March 19, 2001

the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan
Japan's Diet government
Profile of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori

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