TOKYO —

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Monday said he has no plan to dissolve the lower house and call a general election.

Speaking at a lower house Budget Committee session, Noda said his top priority is getting tax and social security reform legislation enacted, as well as a bill to issue deficit-covering bills, TV Asahi reported.

During debate, Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki urged Noda to seek a fresh public mandate on his reforms. He said the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had become fractured following the exodus of rebel party members last week.

Former DPJ members, who are supporters of former DPJ bigwig Ichiro Ozawa, said that Noda had abandoned the DPJ’s 2009 election-winning pledges and that he should apologize to the Japanese people, TV Asahi reported.

Noda said he has not abandoned any pledges and added that the people’s livelihood is his top priority. He also promised to rebuild the DPJ. 

Japan Today

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  Scrote at Jul. 10, 2012 - 09:21AM JST

  Noda said he has not abandoned any pledges

  The lying lump of lard. Did he ever read the DPJ manifesto? He is doing the exact opposite in most cases, e.g. before the election he pledged to stop construction of the Yanba dam: now he is going ahead with it.

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  Ben Jack at Jul. 10, 2012 - 10:19AM JST

  Any way we can rule out Noda?

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  alliswellinjapan at Jul. 10, 2012 - 12:39PM JST

  A non-confident motion to pass lower house will trigger an election at which DPJ is pretty much destined to lose. Should all parties other than DPJ plus Hatoyama's group remaining within DPJ but in opposition of the tax hike bill agree to the motion, it may be challenging for Noda to secure majority voting to reject the motion. The other implication however is that, whether in opposition of the tax hike bill and the nuclear energy policies or not, many existing lower house members incl those in Ozawa's group are not in a secure position to win the next election due to low local popularity and their non-confidence voting may prove to be rather suicidal, unless they find more popular groups of people (ie Hashimoto) to collaborate with who can support them in the election. Ozawa will need to prove he is still capable of managing situations like these behind the scenes as he has successfully done before despite the decline in his influential powers as well as local popularity.

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  edojin at Jul. 11, 2012 - 05:51PM JST

  Noda rules out early election: Good ...