Kaifu Won’t Seek Reelection as Party Chief, Japanese Media Say

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu has abandoned hope of running for a second term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a post that carries with it the premiership, Japanese media reported today.

No comment was available from the prime minister’s office. But on Thursday, one of Kaifu’s chief supporters, Shin Kanemaru, the titular head of the ruling-party faction led by former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, criticized Kaifu for faulty leadership.

It was the first time that Kanemaru, a party kingpin, had criticized Kaifu publicly.

Kaifu was named to the party and government leadership in August, 1989, in the midst of a stocks-for-favors scandal that had tainted all other party leaders. He commands no personal support himself, and he hails from the smallest of the party’s power-oriented factions.

Without support from the Takeshita faction, Kaifu would have no hope of winning reelection to the party job when his term ends Oct. 30.

His leadership of both the party and the government has been widely criticized, particularly during the Persian Gulf crisis, when the government moved slowly to donate $13 billion to front-line states.

Thursday’s fallout with Kanemaru stemmed from a decision in Parliament to kill bills that Kaifu had submitted last summer to reform Japan’s political system. Kaifu reacted with a veiled threat to dissolve Parliament and call a general election--an act that Kanemaru on Thursday called irresponsible.