Mori Coy on When He May Resign

When is Japan’s beleaguered Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori--who was reported Saturday night to have signaled his intention to resign--actually going to step down?

That’s the question that has obsessed the media in the world’s second-largest economy for the last few weeks in an ongoing soap opera about whether the gaffe-prone and widely unpopular Mori is in or out.

The drawn-out saga advanced another step late Saturday when the media reported that the stubborn prime minister had indirectly indicated to party leaders that he would indeed resign. But he didn’t exactly say it in so many words, give specifics or dates, or make an announcement.

In fact, a chief spokesman for Mori said the prime minister in no way clearly spelled out his resignation.

“Last night, Mori expressed his intention to hold elections earlier than the fall. He never expressed or conveyed his resignation in any way,” said Kazuhiko Koshikawa, deputy press secretary for the foreign media. “We know there are many interpretations of that message.”’

It left many wondering. “His way of saying it is totally indirect,” reported this morning’s Daily Yomiuri newspaper. “The prime minister and his aides still insist that it’s not a resignation. It’s totally unclear to the nation.”

The uncertainty didn’t stop Japan’s major newspapers from blaring in lead headlines that Mori had expressed his intention to resign, likely in April. “It is obvious that the information was manipulated behind closed doors,” said a headline in today’s Asahi newspaper.

Takenori Kanzaki, who heads the second-largest party in the ruling coalition, said after receiving a call from Mori that he “considers this to be a de facto resignation,” Reuters news agency reported.

The political uncertainty comes at a difficult time for Japan, which is struggling with record unemployment, a stock market hovering near a 15-year low and a political leadership vacuum.

Newspapers speculated that Mori was likely to resign officially in April after parliament passes the 2001 budget and after planned summits later this month with President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

The White House said Saturday that Bush intends to keep a March 19 date for talks with Mori in Washington and has received no direct word about the resignation.

Mori--who survived a no-confidence vote Monday by the parliament--has said all along that he has no intention of resigning, though party members have been calling for his head, fearing a drubbing in the upper house elections in July if Mori is still at the helm. The media have been wrong before about Mori’s plans: Last week, many newspapers wrote that he intended to resign soon after the no-confidence vote, but instead Mori embraced the motion’s defeat as an endorsement.

The prime minister is elected by the parliament, and except for a brief interregnum in the 1990s, the premiers have come from the country’s all-powerful Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP. The party chooses the candidate by group consensus, the modus operandi for most things in Japan. But removing leaders who fail to heed the group requires a no-confidence vote, and only one such motion per parliament session is allowed.

Mori told LDP elders that he had decided to move forward an election for the party presidency from autumn, when such votes are normally held, to sometime before the upper house elections in July, LDP Secretary-General Makoto Koga told reporters.

The party’s presidency is tantamount to the premiership because of the ruling coalition’s commanding majority in the powerful lower house.

“‘I myself, as party president, must search my soul over the various scandals and the people’s loss of confidence in our party,”’ Koga quoted Mori as saying. “While taking full responsibility as the prime minister, I will discuss the specific date at a later time.”

The Japanese public seems only mildly interested in Mori’s fate. His approval ratings have dropped to the single digits.

Japan, which has had a revolving door of eight prime ministers over the last decade, has grown skeptical that anyone can make a difference in the country’s fate.

One problem: finding a successor who can do better in the polls than Mori.

There are several potential candidates but no clear front-runner. They include Junichiro Koizumi, nominal head of Mori’s own faction within the LDP. However, Koizumi might be reluctant to accept the post if he believes that the LDP will be humiliated, as expected, in upper house elections.

Other possibilities include Hiromu Nonaka, 75, who is viewed as the party’s shadow shogun but has said publicly that he isn’t interested in the position. Makiko Tanaka, 57, the feisty daughter of the late former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, is popular with the public but not so popular within the party.

Mori’s tenure started on a bad note in April, when he was anointed in closed-door sessions after Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi lapsed into a coma and later died. Since then, Mori has made several jingoistic comments that have evoked Japan’s militaristic past, such as calling Japan a “divine nation.”

A key member of his inner circle recently resigned amid charges of corruption. And his popularity ratings dipped to as low as 6% in some polls after he remained on the golf course upon hearing that a Japanese high school’s fishing-training vessel had been sunk by a U.S. submarine near Hawaii. The accident left nine dead.

“We have to take the state of misdeeds seriously and reform the party into a more trustable one that can lead Japanese politics,” Mori said in a statement read Saturday by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, referring to the scandals. “We also have to reform ourselves to regain the nation’s understanding.”