Japan PM resigns after US base row
Thursday, 3 June 2010
TOKYO, June 2(Agencies): Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced his resignation after just eight months in office.
Hatoyama ended more than half a century of conservative rule in an electoral earthquake last August, but soon earned a reputation for crippling indecision at the helm of the world's second-biggest economy.
The 63-year-old millionaire, the scion of an influential family dubbed "Japan's Kennedys", quit at a meeting of his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), blaming the base dispute and political funding scandals.
It comes after he broke an election pledge to move an unpopular US military base away from the island of Okinawa.
Mr Hatoyama's DPJ is struggling to revive its chances in an election due in July.
He said he had also asked DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, who has been embroiled in a funding scandal, to step down to "revitalise" the party.
The centre-left DPJ's election landslide last year ended half a century of conservative rule in Japan.
Hatoyama ended more than half a century of conservative rule in an electoral earthquake last August, but soon earned a reputation for crippling indecision at the helm of the world's second-biggest economy.
The 63-year-old millionaire, the scion of an influential family dubbed "Japan's Kennedys", quit at a meeting of his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), blaming the base dispute and political funding scandals.
It comes after he broke an election pledge to move an unpopular US military base away from the island of Okinawa.
Mr Hatoyama's DPJ is struggling to revive its chances in an election due in July.
He said he had also asked DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, who has been embroiled in a funding scandal, to step down to "revitalise" the party.
The centre-left DPJ's election landslide last year ended half a century of conservative rule in Japan.