Hatoyama hands Okada, Kan key roles

Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009


Hatoyama hands Okada, Kan key roles
Diplomacy, strategy posts filled
Kyodo News
Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama said Saturday he plans to appoint deputy chief Naoto Kan as both state strategy minister and deputy prime minister, and Secretary General Katsuya Okada as foreign minister.

However, Hatoyama said he has no plans to release the name of his finance minister yet. Both Kan and Okada have led the DPJ and were tipped as potential finance ministers.

If the appointments are finalized, Kan will take charge of the National Strategy Bureau, a policymaking body the party plans to establish in the Cabinet to seize control of governmental affairs from the bureaucracy, which has played a dominant role in the governments led by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Kan's experience tangling with bureaucrats when he exposed the scandal over tainted blood products as head of the health ministry could serve him well in his new role.

The National Strategy Bureau will also oversee the budget process.

Hatoyama's choice for the diplomatic portfolio is being closely watched because of concerns that his party's aim of being more independent from the United States could damage relations with Tokyo's biggest security ally.

Hatoyama also revealed that he will keep Azuma Koshiishi, head of the DPJ's Upper House caucus, in his current post.

Hatoyama has already nominated party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa as secretary general, saying his skills are needed to ensure victory in the Upper House election next year. Ozawa is widely believed to be the architect of the DPJ's landslide victory in the Aug. 30 House of Representatives election, which ended more than five decades of nearly continuous rule under the conservative LDP.

The DPJ leader also has decided to appoint his top aide, Hirofumi Hirano, as chief Cabinet secretary.

Hatoyama plans to formally present a list of key posts for his party and Cabinet at a meeting of the DPJ leadership Monday.

The new finance minister is likely to be informally named on Monday or later, party members said.

Hatoyama is also considering tapping Akira Nagatsuma, a DPJ lawmaker who helped expose the government's pension record debacle, for a Cabinet post.

Masayuki Naoshima, the DPJ's policy chief, is also expected to join the new Cabinet by taking an economics-related portfolio, possibly finance minister, party lawmakers said.

Hatoyama is set to be voted in as prime minister in a special Diet session on Sept. 16, and is expected to launch his Cabinet immediately.

The DPJ leader plans to ask the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), potential coalition partners, to put one lawmaker each in the new Cabinet.

Calls are growing within the two minor parties for their leaders — the SDP's Mizuho Fukushima and Kokumin Shinto's Shizuka Kamei — to take part in the Hatoyama Cabinet.

Kan, Okada profiles
Kyodo News
Naoto Kan




Naoto Kan, who is set to be deputy prime minister and strategy chief of the new government, is a cofounder of the Democratic Party of Japan and has headed the party twice since its inception in 1998.

The 62-year-old activist-turned-lawmaker is known for his debating skills and tough stance against the powerful bureaucracy.

Kan shot to fame as health minister in 1996 battling bureaucrats to bring the scandal over HIV-tainted blood products, which involved his ministry and a now-defunct pharmaceutical firm, into the public spotlight.

He was then a key member of the multiparty coalition that briefly ousted the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993.

After the LDP returned to power, Kan formed the DPJ with other anti-LDP lawmakers in April 1998 and served as its first leader until September 1999.

He was elected party leader again in December 2002 but stepped down in May 2004 after coming under fire for paying his pension premiums in the past.

After spending the 1970s engaging in civic activities, Kan got elected to the House of Representatives in 1980 as a member of a small opposition party.

He is now in his 10th term in the Lower House and represents the Tokyo No. 18 constituency.

Katsuya Okada




Katsuya Okada, who has been named to become foreign minister under Democratic Party of Japan chief Yukio Hatoyama, is well-versed in policy matters and sticks to his principles when mapping out policy.

Although Okada lost to Hatoyama in the party leadership election in May, he gained the support of junior members, establishing himself as the front-runner to succeed Hatoyama in the future.

The DPJ's 56-year-old secretary general was elected to a seventh term in the House of Representatives, representing Mie Prefecture's No. 3 constituency.

Okada became party leader in May 2004 but resigned in September 2005 after the DPJ took a drubbing in the 2005 Lower House election won by the Liberal Democratic Party under then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Okada, a former trade ministry bureaucrat, is the son of Takuya Okada, founder of supermarket chain Jusco Co.