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(回答先: ＜Anybody is better than Aso=ABBA＞支持率低下の自民救う「ABBA」（朝鮮日報） 投稿者 gataro 日時 2009 年 7 月 02 日 13:34:27)
‘Abba’ faction told disunity will ensure defeat
By Mure Dickie
Published: June 30 2009 18:43 | Last updated: June 30 2009 18:43
It was only last September that Kaoru Yosano was battling Taro Aso to lead Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic party. He lost that fight but the veteran politician is still sometimes touted as a possible replacement for the embattled LDP president and prime minister.
These days, Mr Yosano – now both finance minister and minister for economic and fiscal policy – is urging his comrades to rally round Mr Aso instead of descending into ever deeper dissent.
“When I contested Mr Aso for the presidency, almost everybody supported Mr Aso,” he told the Financial Times in an interview, referring to his 66 to 351 defeat in voting by LDP lawmakers and local chapters. “All those people who backed Mr Aso then have a responsibility to support him now.”
Mr Yosano’s calming call for unity comes at a torrid time for the LDP, as many members begin to panic at the increasingly likely prospect of defeat at the hands of the opposition Democratic party in a general election due by October.
Nor has the DPJ escaped in the political turmoil: Yukio Hatoyama, the decade-old opposition’s new leader, was on Tuesday forced to apologise after his political fundraising body was found to have falsely reported millions of yen in donations.
The DPJ president blamed a secretary for the error, but said none of the donations was illegal and that he would not resign.
Mr Hatoyama’s fund-raising mishaps are not unalloyed good news for the LDP, even though the DPJ suffered in opinion polls this year after allegations that a senior aide to Ichiro Ozawa, his predecessor as DPJ leader, knowingly accepted improper donations.
Instead, the spotlight on fund-raising problems is further undermining public confidence in the political status quo and politicians in general. Indeed, the former head of the company involved in the scandal surrounding Mr Ozawa’s funding is also being prosecuted for alleged illegal donations to Toshihiro Nikai, the trade minister and an LDP heavyweight.
Mr Yosano himself has been hit by critical media reports that he was the recipient of corporate donations improperly funnelled through dummy organisations. He dismisses any suggestion of misconduct, saying the donations were actually made before the imposition of rules barring companies from directly funding individual politicians.
Mr Yosano’s focus is to continue to stress the importance of working towards the fiscal stabilisation of the increasingly debt-burdened state and he comes out swinging at DPJ leaders who he says are living in a “virtual, imaginary world”.
“Ahead of winning power, the DPJ are offering a delightful menu, but if they actually took power I don’t think they could deliver any of it,” Mr Yosano says.
Such criticism has some resonance. While Mr Aso’s administration has torn up Japan’s timetable for fiscal consolidation amid a slump of historic proportions, it is at least committed to future tax increases – a topic Mr Hatoyama has pushed off the DPJ’s agenda in favour of vague promises to fund welfare by eliminating government waste.
However, the LDP’s appeal to relative fiscal rectitude is being drowned out by growing discord within a party daunted by the DPJ’s widening opinion poll lead.
In recent days, ill-concealed feuding over a possible last-ditch cabinet reshuffle by Mr Aso and the best timing for the election has dominated political coverage. Meanwhile, LDP Diet members are conducting an increasingly open campaign to switch leaders that is unlikely to be silenced by Mr Yosano’s plea for them to stand by Mr Aso.
Koichi Kato, a senior LDP Diet member, says a potential electoral disaster is looming that might be “almost the end of the party” – and that Mr Aso is to blame.
Even though there is no candidate for party president who would be sure to bring a turnround, at least dumping Mr Aso would show the LDP – which has ruled Japan for all but 11 months of the past 53 years – retains some “political energy”, Mr Kato says.
He cites junior Diet colleagues as arguing that the solution to the party’s problems can be found in the name of Abba, the Swedish pop group. “[They argue that] we may not find a good replacement ... but AnyBody is Better than Aso,” Mr Kato says.
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フォローアップ:- Re: URLを書き忘れていました。 gataro 2009/7/02 13:51:31
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