Japan’s P.M. may stay on

Press, 17 May 1989, Page 11

Japan’s P.M. may stay on

NZPA-Reuter Tokyo The Japanese Prime Minister, Noboru Takeshita, may stay in office if his ruling party cannot find a suitable successor, analysts and an official said yesterday.

Mr Takeshita said on April 25 he would step down as a result of his links to the Recruit shares-for-favours scandal after the Budget is passed by Parliament by the end of this month. But Government officials told Reuters yesterday they had made contingency plans for him to attend the July 14-16 Paris summit of industrialised nations. "Takeshita could drag on until after the summit,” said a senior official involved in making the summit arrangements. "He could go back on his decision to quit.” Mr Masayoshi Ito, a prime candidate for Mr Takeshita’s job and the only member of the ruling party’s leadership untouched by the scandal, turned down the job last week and threw the succession process into turmoil. An Oposition member of Parliament asked Mr Takeshita yesterday if he would continue in office if a successor could not be found.

“I have said that after the Budget is passed, the entire Cabinet will resign,” Mr Takeshita replied. Professor Rer- Shiratori of Tokai University said he believed the succession question would prove so difficult that Mr Takeshita would hang on until his term as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic

Party officially ends on October 30. "The biggest possibility is that Takeshita will continue until October 30 because nobody else can be found to succeed him before then,” Professor Shiratori said. Speculation grew yesterday that prosecutors were close to arresting the first members of Parliament in connection with the scandal, in which the Recruit publishing and telecommunications group gave huge sums to key politicians and officials. The Japanese media widely reported a senior member of the ruling party and a member of the Opposition Komeito party were likely to be arrested soon. The Tokyo prosecutor’s office declined all comment on the investigation. So far 13 people have been arrested on corruption charges in the Recruit affair, but the justice Ministry announced yesterday that the investigation would soon be concluded.