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Japan PM seeks August 30 poll despite grim prospects
Mon Jul 13, 2009 2:37am EDT
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By Chisa Fujioka and Yoko Kubota
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso plans to call a general election on August 30, a top ruling party official said on Monday, despite the prospect that his long-ruling conservative party is headed for a big defeat.
The decision to dissolve the lower house for a vote follows a crushing loss for the unpopular leader's ruling bloc in a Tokyo assembly election on Sunday that was seen as a barometer for the national poll, which is due no later than October.
Parliament's powerful lower house would be dissolved next week to set the stage for the election, Hiroyuki Hosoda, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), told reporters.
Moves within the LDP to replace Aso had been expected to grow after the party and its junior partner lost their majority in the Tokyo assembly but Hosoda said he saw no such moves now.
A Democratic Party victory in the national election would end half a century of nearly unbroken rule by the business-friendly LDP and raise the chance of resolving political deadlocks as Japan tries to recover from its worst recession since World War Two.
Chaos has gripped the LDP, with Aso's critics inside the party speaking of ditching him while the party's campaign strategist had tried to draft an ex-comedian for its ticket.
"It's clear if parliament is dissolved now, the result would be the same as the Tokyo election," Natsuo Yamaguchi, policy chief of the LDP's junior coalition partner, the New Komeito, told a TV Asahi program.
The Democrats have pledged to pay more heed to the rights of consumers and workers than those of corporations and to pry policy-making decisions out of the hands of bureaucrats as a way to reduce wasteful spending.
DAY OF RECKONING DELAYED
Some financial market experts were disappointed the election would not be held sooner.
"This means that Japan will have to spend another one and a half months under the current administration that has lost leadership and wait until September for the formation of a new government," said Susumu Kato, chief economist at Calyon Capital Markets Japan.
"The market has started factoring in a change of government, but the longer the wait, the more the political and economic uncertainty grows."
An opposition win in the general election would smooth policy implementation by resolving deadlocks in parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and can delay bills.
But some analysts say the Democrats' large spending plans could inflate public debt and push up government bond yields.
"Even if the Democrats were to take power, they may be forced to pursue populist policies until next year's upper house election, meaning that fiscal discipline could be pushed back, which would be negative for the bond market," said Naomi Hasegawa, senior fixed income strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities. Continued...
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