Koizumi Denies Early Lower House Breakup

Saitama, Sept. 21 (Jiji Press)–Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi, set to run in the upcoming leadership election of Japan’s ruling party, said Sunday that he will not dissolve the House of Representatives early for a snap election if he is elected prime minister. “Even if I become president of the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan’s prime minister, I would not be in a situation to dissolve the Lower House soon,” he told reporters in the city of Saitama, near Tokyo. “What is sought now is to shape policies, not a prolonged political vacuum,” Koizumi said. Koizumi has announced his intention to run in the Oct. 4 election to choose a new LDP president to succeed Shigeru Ishiba, the country’s outgoing prime minister. The party race, scheduled to kick off officially on Monday, is expected to have five candidates–Koizumi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi, and Sanae Takaichi and Takayuki Kobayashi, both former economic security ministers. Ishiba’s resignation would come after the LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, lost their combined majority in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, in the July 20 election. The ruling parties lost their control of the all-important Lower House in last October’s general election. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]