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September 12, 2007
Prime Minister of Japan to Step Down By NORIMITSU ONISHI TOKYO, Sept. 12 — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the nationalist leader whose vision of an unapologetic and strong Japan foundered on scandals and gaffes, announced abruptly this afternoon that he would step down. In a hastily called news conference, Mr. Abe acknowledged that he had lost the public’s trust and said that he hoped a new leader would be better able to carry out his policies, including continuing the Japanese military’s participation in the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Abe, deeply unpopular, had already been written off by Japan’s political establishment and news media, his political future measured in months. But the resignation’s timing — three days after the start of a parliamentary session — stunned Japan. It drew accusations of irresponsibility from inside and outside his party, and threw the country’s already tense political situation into further disarray. “In the current situation, it will be quite difficult to forcefully pursue policies based on the people’s support and trust,” Mr. Abe said, seeming at one point on the verge of tears. His announcement forced Parliament to cancel an afternoon session during which opposition leaders were to grill Mr. Abe for the first time since the start of the parliamentary session on Monday. Mr. Abe’s party, the Liberal Democrats, announced they would hold an election on Sept. 19 to choose a new leader who, given the party’s control of the lower house of Parliament, will automatically become Japan’s next prime minister. The timing of the resignation was all the more puzzling because Mr. Abe had steadfastly refused to resign, or to dissolve Parliament and call a general election, after his party suffered a humiliating defeat in an upper house election over the summer. He also reshuffled his cabinet two weeks ago in what was touted as a fresh start. What is more, in a speech at the start of the current parliamentary session on Monday and in news conferences, Mr. Abe had laid out plans for the future, including extending a law to allow Japan’s naval forces to participate in a mission in the Indian Ocean. “The way he resigned was unprecedented,” said Jun Iio, a professor of government at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies here. “Unfortunately, even though Abe had some successes as prime minister, he will be remembered for the way he resigned. Other prime ministers resigned after putting up a good fight and made the reasons for their resignation very clear. But the way Abe resigned suggests he lacked the qualifications to be prime minister in the first place.” Even as the parliamentary session started and the newly powerful main opposition Democratic Party showed no signs of yielding to Mr. Abe on the Afghanistan-related law, Mr. Abe — who had described himself as a “politician who fights” — had apparently already lost his will. Taro Aso, the secretary general of his party, said that Mr. Abe first mentioned to him directly his desire to quit on Monday. Mr. Aso said he told Mr. Abe that the timing was not appropriate, but that Mr. Abe repeated his desire to resign on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday. “His intention did not change at all over three days,” Mr. Aso said in a separate news conference. Mr. Aso, who served as foreign minister until recently, is widely considered the front-runner to succeed Mr. Abe. Asked about his plans to run in the Sept. 19 party election, Mr. Aso smiled broadly and laughed, before adding that the timing was wrong to make such an announcement. But experts said pressure to soon call a general election — which must be held before September 2009 — is unlikely to diminish with a change of leadership. “A new prime minister will benefit from a bounce in the polls, but that is unlikely to be enough,” said Takeshi Sasaki, a political scientist at Gakushuin University and a former president of the University of Tokyo. “Since the last general election was in 2005, this will be the second government without the voters’ direct endorsement. So the next prime minister will likely be forced to dissolve Parliament and call a general election, probably late this year or early next year.” Possibly to deflect criticism of the sudden resignation, party officials said that Mr. Abe, 52, the first prime minister born after World War II, was suffering from poor health, though they provided no details. “Prime Minister Abe was going forward while examining whether his health could handle the severe schedule and heavy psychological pressure of being prime minister,” said Kaoru Yosano, the chief cabinet secretary. Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, criticized Mr. Abe for resigning three days after the start of the parliamentary session. “In my almost 40 years in politics, it’s the first time I’ve seen this,” Mr. Ozawa said. Mr. Ozawa has focused his attention on a contentious law that allows Japan’s naval forces to join a mission to refuel American and other ships participating in the war in Afghanistan. The law will expire on Nov. 1 unless it is extended. Mr. Abe said the governing party’s ability to fight for an extension would improve under a new leader. But Mr. Ozawa said his party would continue to oppose the law. “There is no way that our thinking will change because of a change in the Liberal Democratic Party,” he said. The debate over the law is expected to be bruising. Opinion polls showed that most Japanese opposed extending the law. And Mr. Ozawa tapped into a general unease that under Mr. Abe and his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan had grown too close to the United States militarily, even to the point of possibly violating its pacifist Constitution. Mr. Abe, who became prime minister last September, gained popularity by championing the cause of a dozen Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and, critics said, fanning nationalist anger. As a lawmaker, he had long led efforts to revise school textbooks and present what critics said was a whitewashed version of Japan’s wartime history. Last spring, Mr. Abe said there was no evidence that the Japanese military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II, causing furor in the United States, as well as in Asian and European countries. The comments built support for the eventual passage by the United States House of Representatives of a nonbinding resolution calling on Japan to clearly acknowledge and apologize for its past regarding sexual slavery. Mr. Abe’s cabinet was weakened by a series of money-related scandals and gaffes that forced four of his ministers to resign; a fifth committed suicide after being caught massively inflating his office expenses. But it was Mr. Abe’s mishandling of a bookkeeping problem surrounding the national pension system that contributed the most to his party’s devastating loss in the upper house election. While the problem had existed for many years, Mr. Abe simply kept quiet after learning about it early this year. After opposition politicians exposed it in the spring, Mr. Abe initially played down the issuing, angering voters in a rapidly aging nation with a declining birthrate. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Japan has passed special laws to circumvent its pacifist Constitution to participate in the American-led wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq. But the Japanese government has released few details about the nature of its assistance to the U.S. military, leading many opposition politicians to suggest that Japanese troops are in fact violating the Constitution. Opposition politicians have suggested that Japan has refueled American vessels that were involved not in Afghanistan, but in Iraq. In addition, they have said that Japan’s Air Force — which has been transporting American troops between Kuwait and Baghdad — has clearly overstepped its stated mission of engaging in humanitarian activities. Opposition politicians are expected to use their new power in the upper house of Parliament to demand more information about these military missions. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/world/asia/12cnd-japan.html?hp
by sato_ignis
| 2007-09-13 04:43
| 講義
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ファン申請 |
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