Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dissolved the lower house immediately after the postal reform bills advocated by him failed to clear the upper house on Monday.
The premier has said he intended to have the general election held on Sept. 11. The upper house is not subject to dissolution.
The bills were voted down in the upper house 125 against 108 as Koizumi's drive had divided his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) so heavily that many party members joined the opposition parties to stop the passage of the legislation.
A combined 30 LDP upper house members voted against postal bills or abstained, well exceeding the 18 needed to kill the bills.
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshinobu Shimamura resigned to express his opposition to the dissolution. However, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a press conference after a cabinet meeting that Shimamura has been dismissed from his post.
Shimamura said some other ministers also voiced opposition to the lower house dissolution during the cabinet meeting, but Hosoda rejected the remarks, saying the decision was approved by all cabinet ministers but Shimamura.
Also sacked was Parliamentary Defense Secretary Takeaki Kashimura.
Privatizing Japan's postal services has been one of Koizumi's core policies. Under the plan, the mammoth body with some 270,000 employees will be split into four units to be run under a holding company from April 2007, and become fully privatized entities in 10 years. He intends to spin off these public servants to relieve the government of financial burden.
However, his ambition has met vehement resistance, not only from the opposition parties, but also from his own ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The postal service system is one of the major supporting groups for the party, thus has strong clout there.
They are worried that the privatization would deprive them of stable payments and job posts. Opponents also argued that the privatization could result in the closure of the bulk of post offices, particularly in rural, depopulated areas where many LDP supporters reside.
The major opposition Domestic Party of Japan is opposed to the government-proposed privatization on the grounds that it might result in the creation of a massive government-affiliated conglomerate offering postal, financial, distribution and retail services that would weigh heavily on their respective private-sector competitors.
In order to gain over party opponents, Koizumi even threatened to dismiss the lower house and call a snap general election. In such case, the ruling party could encounter a tough war as the DPJ had demonstrated a rapid growth in political strength in the previous lower house election in 2003 and the upper house election last year.
None of the two sides compromised. Opponents within the LDP rejected last-ditch lobbies from Koizumi's supporters after the bills cleared the lower house in July with a narrow margin of five votes. Koizumi, meanwhile, adamantly insisted on the dissolution despite some party heavyweights, including former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who is a party faction leader and Koizumi's major backer.
The determined premier said that he would pursue the postal reform to the end, even if at the cost of life.
After learning the bills have been rejected, Koizumi reportedly said that the LDP would not throw back behind on rebels in the upcoming general election, and vowed to destroy the old LDP to give it a new life.
The DPJ showed confidence for a good result in the lower house election. Party leader Katsuya Okada vowed that his party would end ruling of the LDP for over 50 years.
New Komeito party leader Takenori Kanzaki said that his party will continue cooperation with the LDP, but admitted that it would be difficult to win in the election.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2005)
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