Japanese prime minister says he will resign

9/12/2007

TOKYO : Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on Wednesday he would resign, ending a year-old government that has suffered a string of damaging scandals and a humiliating electoral defeat.

"In the present situation, it is difficult to push ahead with effective policies that win the support and trust of the public," Abe said in a nationally televised news conference. "I have decided that we need a change in this situation"

Abe, 52, whose support rating has fallen to 30 percent, cited the ruling party's defeat in July 29 elections for the upper house of parliament, and said he was stepping down to minimize the political confusion in Tokyo.

Abe said he had instructed party leaders to immediately search for a new premier, but he did not announce a date for his departure from office. His former foreign minister Taro Aso is considered a front-runner to replace him.

Abe said he was stepping down because he lacked the power to rally people together, NHK quoted Aso, how LDP secretary-general, as telling reporters. Abe also said he was "tired" and had lost his political energy, NHK reported.

Abe, a nationalist who entered office as Japan's youngest postwar premier, had also been facing a battle in parliament over his efforts to extend the country's refueling mission in support of the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan. Just days earlier, he said he would quit if he failed to win parliamentary passage of legislation extending the Afghan mission.

"I have pondered how Japan should continue its fight against terrorism," Abe said Wednesday. "I now believe we need change. So, Japan must continue its fight against terrorism under a new prime minister."

The plenary session of the lower house was to be delayed, media reports said, but an official of the lower house could not confirm, saying she has not heard of anything.

Abe's resignation marks a rapid fall from power for a prime minister who came into office a year ago with ambitious plans to repair frayed relations with Asian neighbors, revise the 1947 pacifist constitution, and bolster Japan's role in international diplomatic and military affairs.

The prime minister, whose grandfather was premier and whose father was a foreign minister, initially met with success in fence-mending trips last autumn to China and South Korea.

But a string of scandals starting late last year quickly eroded support for Abe. Four Cabinet ministers were forced to resign over the past nine months, and one - his first agriculture minister - committed suicide over a money scandal.

Opposition lawmakers said it was about time Abe resigned.

"It is irresponsible for him (to quit) after he gave a policy speech and was to face parliament questioning. He should have quit right after the upper house elections," Mizuho Fukushima, head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, told NHK.