Takeshita to Resign as Premier : Stock Scandal, Low Popularity Bring Change in Japan

Japan’s Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita announced today that he will resign, Chief Cabinet Secretary Keizo Obuchi said in a live television broadcast.

The move came in the wake of a widening political scandal and an unpopular sales tax that have made Takeshita the most unpopular Japanese prime minister since World War II.

The mass circulation newspaper Mainichi Shimbun and the Japan Broadcasting Corp. said Takeshita plans to resign as soon as Parliament passes the budget for fiscal 1989, expected by early May.

Scandal, Sales Tax

The reports said Takeshita chose to resign because the stock scandal and the sales tax, which took effect April 1, have sent his support ratings plummeting.

A recent poll by the Kyodo News Service put Takeshita’s support at only 3.9%, the lowest ever recorded by Kyodo for a prime minister.

Passage of the budget for fiscal 1989, which began April 1, has been blocked by an opposition boycott of deliberations in Parliament, but it is expected to come late this month or soon after several national holidays end early in May.

Takeshita, who became prime minister in November, 1987, reportedly will cancel a trip to five southeast Asian nations. He had been scheduled to leave Saturday for the nine-day tour.

Ito a Possible Successor

Masayoshi Ito, chairman of the executive council of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and an eight-time member of the lower house, has been mentioned as a possible successor to Takeshita. However, political analysts say poor health may keep Ito, 75, from accepting the post. Ito is diabetic.

At least 17 politicians or their aides, including those of Takeshita, reportedly bought discount shares of stock in a subsidiary of Recruit Co., an information-publishing conglomerate, in 1986. The transactions generated large profits when the share prices soared after the stocks were made available for over-the-counter trading.

Has Denied Wrongdoing

Takeshita has denied wrongdoing but has acknowledged receiving more than $1 million in what he called legal political donations from Recruit.

Many of the donations were ticket purchases to fund-raising parties. Such gatherings of fellow politicians and business leaders are common in Japan, where politics and business are closely related. They are especially popular with the Liberal Democrats as a way around laws restricting campaign funds.

News reports over the weekend said Takeshita also borrowed $381,700 from Recruit in 1987, returning the funds a few months later.

Recruit paid millions of dollars to influential politicians or their aides as contributions, raising suspicions that it was seeking favors in return.

In all, more than a dozen people have been arrested on bribery and other charges, and three Takeshita-appointed Cabinet members have resigned in connection with the scandal.

Vowed Political Reforms

In recent weeks, Takeshita has repeatedly vowed to push through political reforms to restore public trust in government.

Political analysts say that along with the scandal and low popularity ratings, the prime minister was pressed by dissent within the party and opposition calls for his resignation. Younger party members feared they would not be able to win elections with Takeshita as their leader.

Elections for half the seats in the upper house are due later this summer.

Successive scandals have failed to shake the Liberal Democrats’ grip on power. With the exception of 10 months of Socialist government from 1947 to 1948, the party and its predecessor have governed Japan since World War II.