Japan opposition ends truce with PM, scolds his ministers

TOKYO (Dec 9): Japan's opposition on Friday made clear that a
honeymoon period was over for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's
three-month-old cabinet, voting to censure two of his ministers in the
parliament's upper house.

The opposition, which controls the upper house, has cooperated with
Noda on the passage of a $155 billion budget to fund rebuilding from the
March earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear disaster and tax hikes to
secure its financing.

But the non-binding censure motion against his defence and consumer
affairs ministers is a warning that such cooperation will be hard to
come by when Noda will need support for his plan to double the sales tax
to 10 percent to cover rising costs of caring for the fast-aging
population.

The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which lost power to the
Democrats in 2009 after half a century of a nearly uninterrupted rule,
has made it clear that it wanted to use its ability to block legislation
to force Noda to call an early election after the disaster-related laws
are passed.

Noda took over in September as Japan's sixth premier in five years
facing a multitude of challenges: reining in public debt twice the size
of the economy, spearheading the nation's reconstruction efforts and
finding new sources of growth in a rapidly-ageing society.

Noda has said he was standing by his ministers, but the vote puts him
in a bind because keeping them in his cabinet would make it harder to
work with the opposition while letting them go could embolden the
opposition and weaken his grip on power.

Some analysts suggest Noda could follow the example of his
predecessor Naoto Kan to get out of the quandary. When Kan's two
ministers were censured in November 2010 he did not dismiss them out of
hand, but later replaced them in a cabinet "reshuffle."

"Switching ministers often cannot be good for Japan. But he might
have no option but to let them go in the form of a cabinet reshuffle,"
said Koichi Nakano, political science professor at Sophia University in
Tokyo.

Noda's approval ratings have steadily declined from close to 60
percent after his appointment to less than 40 percent in the past week
as government officials' blunders and his embrace of controversial
policies such as a U.S.-led free trade pact and tax hikes have taken
their toll.

The censure motion against Defence Minister Yasuo Ichikawa was
prompted by an offensive comment by a senior defence ministry official
over plans to relocate the U.S. Marines' airbase in the southern island
of Okinawa.

Ichikawa also came under fire after he told parliament last week he
did not know the details of a 1995 Okinawa rape case, in which a
12-year-old girl was assaulted by three U.S. servicemen, stoking
anti-U.S. base sentiment on the island.

Consumer Affairs Minister Kenji Yamaoka was censured for his ties with pyramid scheme businesses.

Noda has already suffered an early setback when trade minister Yoshio
Hachiro resigned after just eight days in office over comments seen as
insensitive about radiation from the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear
plant. - Reuters