Friday July 3, 2009

Tokyo poll eyed for clue to fate of PM, ruling bloc

By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and his opposition rival pitched their policies on Friday at the start of a local election likely to affect whether the unpopular premier can keep his job ahead of a tough national election.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (R) greets a member of the crowd after making a speech on a street in Tokyo July 3, 2009. (REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly vote on July 12 is being seen as a bellwether for the national election, due by October, that Aso's ruling bloc is in danger of losing.

Polls show Aso's business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is likely to lose power to the opposition Democratic Party [ID:nT44020], which has pledged to cut wasteful spending, focus on the needs of ordinary people and forge a diplomatic stance less reliant on close security ally the United States.

"We should build the kind of politics that values people over concrete," Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama told a crowd in Tokyo, in a dig at the LDP's decades of what critics say was wasteful spending on unnecessary public works projects.

His speech sparked scattered applause from the crowd gathered on a busy street corner in Tokyo's Tsukiji district, some wearing the rubber boots of workers in the massive nearby fish market.

One bystander said the LDP's lengthy reign had produced corruption that could be cleaned up by a change in government.

"It has created this kind of bad politics," said Chizuru Imai, a Tsukiji fish trader for 40 years. "It's all about connections. It's money politics. The Democrats say they will change all that."

DUMP ASO MOVES

Speculation is simmering that Aso may call an election for parliament's lower house in early August, but a poor performance by the ruling bloc in the Tokyo vote would likely fuel moves in the LDP to dump the premier ahead of the national election.

An LDP loss in an election for the governor of Shizuoka in central Japan, a vote for which will be held on Sunday, would similarly add to Aso's woes.

Aso travelled to Ome in western Tokyo to launch the LDP campaign with an attack on the Democrats, saying they could neither rescue Japan from its worst recession since World War Two, nor defend it from unpredictable nearby North Korea.

"A change in administration is a means, not an end in itself," Aso said to a mostly subdued crowd under cloudy skies.

"Isn't the biggest question what they will do when they take power? Will they improve the economy? A change in government means the economy will worsen," he said.

Some listeners, though, said they were ready to take a risk.

"I have been an LDP supporter but I feel that I can't support them now. They're too arrogant," said retiree Masao Ida, 68.

"I want to see what comes from change."

Kotaro Watanabe, a 34-year-old sports instructor on his way to work, said he had little hope that much would change if the Democrats took charge -- but was willing to give them a chance.

"The LDP has been too strong and we need to have a political force that can compete with them," he said.

"In that sense, I have hopes for the Democrats."

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg)

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