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Hatoyama's resignation in Japan to have wider impact

By Liu Junhong: 0 Comments Print E-mail China Daily, June 4, 2010

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Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's abrupt resignation Wednesday has plunged Japan into a fresh political crisis.

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announces his resignation, with tears in his eyes, during a general meeting of DPJ lawmakers at the parliament building in Tokyo June 2, 2010. [Xinhua]

Hatoyama's brief reign will likely result in political turbulence in the island nation, especially since the former PM had failed to deliver on many of his promised political and diplomatic policies.

After a resounding election victory over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in late August, Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)-led coalition government had launched a campaign to radically change Japan's domestic policy and diplomacy, thereby freeing it from the decades-long grip of the previous LDP governments.

However, during his eight-month rule, the Stanford-educated Hatoyama failed to resolve many problems, which he had promised to address during his election campaign.

Instead, the escalating contradictions within the DPJ and its coalition partners over a series of domestic and diplomatic issues increased the pressure on Hatoyama's government.

After it came to power in mid-September, the DPJ-led government proposed to break away from the country's long-controversial decision-making system built on a rigid bureaucratic set-up and promoted the establishment of a new policy-making mechanism.

But the high proportion of first-time DPJ lawmakers made consensus and unified policy making difficult, as they lacked the required political experience.

The lack of a clear coordination and communication mechanism with Japan's bureaucracy directly curtailed the DPJ-led government's policy-making efficiency and capability.

This, together with Hatoyama's failure to come up with effective ways to revive the economy in the context of the global economic slowdown, angered the Japanese public.

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