Japan coalition party leader plans to resign .
TOKYO 1996-08-28
The leader of a junior partner in Japan 's three-party ruling coalition plans to resign to quell a political rebellion , party officials said on Wednesday .
The officials said New Party Sakigake President Masayoshi Takemura , finance minister until the beginning of this year , promised his resignation in a meeting with the politician who set off the rebellion in the smallest coalition member .
They said the date of Takemura 's resignation would be determined by party officials .
The Sakigake row has caused jitters in its coalition partners , Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto 's Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP ) , the biggest grouping , and the Social Democratic Party .
But analysts said the row was not expected to immediately destabilise the government as even if Sakigake splits apart it has so few seats a loss of support would not lead to a general election .
The dispute pits Takemura , who founded Sakigake in 1993 as a reform-oriented LDP splinter group , against party official Yukio Hatoyama , who says he will leave Sakigake to form a reformist political group next month .
Hatoyama , the 49-year-old grandson of a 1950s prime minister , on Tuesday quit as Sakigake secretary general and has publicly snubbed the 62-year-old Takemura , pointedly ruling his mentor out as a possible member of the new political force .
Marathon talks between the two former allies on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning failed to resolve the dispute over the role of Takemura , seen by Hatoyama backers as tainted by his senior role in the LDP-dominated coalition .
The presence of Takemura , whose role as finance minister in passing an unpopular plan to use taxpayer funds to wind up failed housing loan firms ruined his reputation as a reformer , has stalled Hatoyama 's efforts to attract to his new group defectors from the opposition camp , analysts said .
Media reports say that at most 10 of 23 Sakigake members , joined by a handful of Social Democrats , will follow Hatoyama when he bolts -- far short of the 50 lawmakers needed to topple Hashimoto 's eight-month-old government .
Hashimoto -- who returns from a 10-day Latin American tour on Saturday -- must call polls by mid-1997 , and has repeatedly said he would not call an early general election .
But many analysts and politicians believe he may dissolve parliament soon after it reconvenes in early October .