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TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday
he will pick his new cabinet by himself, defiantly showing
independence over party bosses despite a crashing election defeat.
Abe has refused to resign but has
promised to reshuffle his cabinet after his conservative Liberal
Democratic Party lost control of one house of parliament in
Sunday’s elections.
Asked by reporters if he would
accept recommendations from party faction leaders in selecting the
next cabinet, Abe said: “I want to pick a person suited to each
ministerial post.”
Prime ministers in Japan
traditionally named ministers based on recommendations from key
factions of the party, which has been in power almost continuously
since 1955.
Former Premier Junichiro Koizumi
broke the rule and Abe, who succeeded him in September, pledged to
follow suit.
But Abe, at 52 Japan’s youngest
premier in modern times, has faced accusations that he lacks
authority, leading to the election defeat, after his first cabinet
was plagued by scandal.
In less than a year, three
ministers have resigned and another committed suicide after scandals
or gaffes.
Abe has come under strong
pressure from party elders as he prepares the cabinet reshuffle,
expected later this month or in early September.
“It’s better to form a team
by listening to advice from leaders and each group of the party,”
former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said Tuesday.
The Asahi Shimbun reported this
week that Mori, who leads the faction, which Abe came from, had
unsuccessfully pressured the premier to quit on Election Day.
Koizumi had won a strong popular
mandate over his five-year tenure with his high-profile snubbing of
party factions.
But Abe’s popularity has kept
falling.
Support for Abe’s cabinet
plunged to 22 percent, with more than half of voters believing he
will resign by the end of the year, said a poll of 1,000 voters by
the Fuji News Network.
--AFP
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