Word: ldp
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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RESIGNED. TAKAO KOYAMA, 57, and MASAKUNI MURAKAMI, 68, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (ldp) in the Japanese parliament's Upper House, from the ldp and as head of the ldp group in the House, respectively; in Tokyo. Koyama quit after being arrested on suspicion of taking $170,000 in bribes from an insurance foundation in return for comments he made in favor of the group's activities. Murakami stepped down to take responsibility for this latest in a series of scandals to plague Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's government...
...would support a reorganization of government ministries under Mori. "No," Kato said. "I won't let Mori reshuffle the cabinet." Kato, a member of Mori's Liberal Democratic Party, went on to say he would side with opposition parties in a no-confidence vote, and take dozens of LDP pols with...
...Mori is as unpopular as a leader could be. Recent surveys show a mere 15 percent of Japanese approve of him. Yet Kato badly miscalculated how many LDP lawmakers would join his coup and risk splitting the party that has ruled Japan for 42 of the last 45 years. He ended up walking away from the fight he started, in embarrassing fashion...
...knew to whom he was talking, they say, and the session was on the record. More likely, the episode revealed that Kato is a creature of the very habits - decision-making behind closed doors - that he claims to want to change. He can take comfort from one thing. The LDP's most powerful deal-maker, Hiromu Nonaka, said the result doesn't mean Mori has the support of his party. In the end, Kato probably laid the groundwork for somebody else to push Mori aside...
...problems started with the proclamation of chief Cabinet secretary Mikio Aoki that Prime Minister Obuchi had appointed him acting prime minister. But with no witnesses to this supposed action and Aoki's relative unpopularity with the LDP's ruling elite, quick action was taken to dissolve the existing Cabinet so that a new prime minister could be chosen. On the short list of possible candidates, Mori was the consensus candidate. He can be trusted not to rock the boat and to carry out few visionary reforms. Instead, he is predicted to plod along, maintaining the status quo as determined...