Word: moris
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...Mori's Verbal Gaffes...
Last week's failed attempt to drive Japan's Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori from office got its start at a private dinner among Tokyo's media elite. On November 6, reformist lawmaker Koichi Kato had dinner with the publisher of Japan's largest-circulation daily and four political pundits at the tony Okura Hotel. Kato had sipped "three or four bottles of sake," according to two of his companions, when he was asked if he 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...
...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...
...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...
Opponents quickly used the gaffe to further erode Mori's popularity. Not that they want to replace him. Then they'd have to deal with the ballooning debt, a huge budget deficit and a tanking stock market...