Japan readies for new PM race as Naoto Kan quits - The Guardian

Naoto Kan has resigned as Japan's PM following criticism of his leadership after the tsunami. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

Japan is expected to get its seventh leader in six years early next week, after the prime minister, Naoto Kan, confirmed he would resign in the midst of the country's worst crisis since the second world war.

Kan, who is battling record-low approval ratings over the aftermath of the 11 March tsunami, had promised to step down once parliament has passed a series of bills, including those to fund rebuilding and promote renewable energy.

One of those bills has passed and the other two expected to win parliamentary support this week, paving the way for the governing Democratic party of Japan [DPJ] to elect a new leader on Monday.

Whoever wins the contest will be approved as prime minister the following day as leader of the largest party in the lower house.

The most likely successor emerged on Monday, when Kan's former foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, announced he would run. The 49-year-old, who remains popular despite resigning in early March over a minor funding scandal, could run against his DPJ ally, the finance minister, Yoshihiko Noda, and the trade minister, Banri Kaieda.

At least three other MPs are considering running, Japanese media reported, including the agriculture minister, Michihiko Kano, a veteran politician who is seen as dull but dependable.

Kan said on Wednesday thathe would resign as DPJ president if the two outstanding bills were passed, as expected, this Friday. "Then, when a new [party] leader is chosen, I will quit as prime minister," he told a parliamentary panel.

Kan finds himself in the unusual position of leading a popular movement against nuclear power following the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, but also of presiding over a deeply unpopular government.

A Kyodo News poll on Sunday showed approval for Kan's cabinet at 15.8%; yet in the same survey, more than 75% of respondents said they backed his plan to scrap nuclear power.

Of the leading candidates, Maehara is closest to Kan on energy policy, saying Japan should phase out nuclear power over the next 20 years.

In 2009, the DPJ ended more than 50 years of almost unbroken conservative rule promising to revive the economy, shift Japan's foreign policy focus from the US to Asia and implement an ambitious spending programme targeted at struggling families.

But the left-of-centre party has been criticised for dropping key election pledges, including the introduction of means-testing for child allowances, with Kan criticised for his handling of the nuclear disaster and humanitarian emergency in areas hit by the tsunami.

Whoever succeeds him faces a surging yen that is hurting the country's manufacturing base, the ongoing nuclear crisis, the reconstruction of the north-eastern coast, surging social security costs and a public debt more than twice the size of the economy.

He will also have to reach a deal with opposition parties to pass legislation through the upper house, where no single party has overall control.

Maehara, a defence hawk who has warned against China's military buildup, said his priorities were to beat deflation and unite the country as it attempts to recover from March's triple disaster.

"We need to stand beside the disaster victims and overcome this national catastrophe together," Maehara, 49, told party supporters.

"Many people are disappointed by the current state of politics… we need to restore the public's faith in politics. Allow me to take the lead in building a new Japan."

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