JAPAN’S PRIME Minister Yukio Hatoyama quit yesterday after a vertiginous eight-month fall in popularity caused by money scandals and a humiliating retreat on one of his key pledges: the relocation of a US military base.
Fighting back tears, Mr Hatoyama apologised to a live national TV audience for his “failure to change politics” and put Japanese people first. “We need to bring back a thoroughly clean Democratic Party,” he said.
The fourth Japanese prime minister in a row to step down after less than a year in office, Mr Hatoyama was under intense pressure from fellow Democrats (DPJ) to give way ahead of a general election on July 11th.
The party is today searching for a leader who can help resuscitate cabinet approval ratings that have plummeted below 20 points from highs of over 70 per cent last year.
Swept into office last September in a stunning landslide, the prime minister promised to break the “iron triangle” of conservative politicians, business and top bureaucrats run by the outgoing Liberal Democratic (LDP) government since 1955. But he and DPJ secretary general Ichiro Ozawa, who has also announced his resignation, were quickly mired in money scandals similar to those that tarnished LDP rule. Both were hounded by prosecutors for much of their short term in office.
Mr Hatoyama’s image as a political ditherer unable to make uncomfortable decisions was sealed by his failure to settle a dispute over a controversial US Marine base on the island prefecture of Okinawa.
Before taking office, he promised to move the Futenma air station out of the prefecture as part of a broader attempt to challenge what he called Japan’s subservience to US interests. That pledge turned into a political anvil around the government’s neck as it spent months searching in vain for an alternative site, before arriving back at square one.
Mr Hatoyama’s decision last month to accept an unpopular deal made by the previous government, pledging to shift the base to a disputed site off the northern Okinawa coast, was greeted with fury by the islanders and widespread mockery in the media.
His fate was sealed by the decision of pacifist lawmakers from junior coalition partner the Social Democrats to resign in protest last weekend. DPJ politicians hope the prime minister’s departure will draw a line under the base affair and give them a chance in next month’s upper house poll. Finance minister Naoto Kan is tipped to take over when the party meets to elect a new leader tomorrow.
The resignation sparked calls for an immediate general election from the LDP, who branded it a ploy to revive support for the stumbling Democrats. “They are just trying to change their dress to deceive the public,” said LDP secretary general Tadamori Oshima.
Democrats control the more powerful lower house but need both chambers to avoid legislative roadblocks.