Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Will the Prime Minister Take Last Orders?

A couple of stories on the Sankei website here and here. In the first one, cabinet ministers including Naoto and Kazuhiro Haraguchi, the most likely candidates as Hatoyama’s replacement, line up behind the prime minister in support. Well, what else could these people, handpicked by Hatoyama himself, say when accosted by reporters, right? But it is a useful reminder that the business of government goes on, even while people like me speculate on the political game for fun and (modest) profit. And Hatoyama is indicating in his typically roundabout way that he intends to soldier on. The second one has Azuma Koshiishi reassuring the harried DPJ leadership that he (and Ozawa?) will resolve the problem within a couple of days.

So what happens when the hard-to-resist force meets the hard-to-move object? How about a lame-pigeon prime minister finishing up the legislative agenda in the next two weeks, then a DPJ presidential election immediately after the Diet session ends, and fighting the election under the new president, who would be elected prime minister in the post-election extraordinary Diet session?

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