Friday, April 30
TOKYO (AFP) - – Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose political future has been threatened by a row over a US military base, Thursday called on major trade unions to continue supporting his government.
"There is a growing force to turn back the clock but we must move the hands of the clock further in the right direction," Hatoyama told a mass rally organised by Japan's biggest labour confederation, Rengo.
About 33,000 people, according to Rengo's count, gathered at a central Tokyo park for the May Day rally, held Thursday to coincide with a public holiday.
"The change of government was meant to make a society which rewards those who work," said Hatoyama, whose centre-left Democratic Party of Japan swept to power in a landslide election victory last year, ending a half century of almost unbroken conservative rule.
"I am convinced that you are feeling how the country is changing," he said.
But Hatoyama's approval rating has plunged, from over 70 percent into the 20-percent range, while he and his party head were embroiled in political fund scandals and he was seen lagging on his promises.
The rate stood at 20.7 percent, down 12.3 points from three weeks earlier, according to the latest opinion poll released by Kyodo news agency Thursday. The disapproval rating rose 11.1 points to 64.4 percent.
Hatoyama has vowed to "stake his job" on settling by the end of May the issue of relocating a US Marine base on Okinawa, amid criticism from opposition parties and the media just months before upper-house elections in the summer.
As part of his "people-first" policy, Hatoyama has promised to move the unpopular base from Okinawa, an island in Japan's southern most prefecture, or even out of Japan entirely.
The proposal has irritated the US administration, as it runs counter to a 2006 Japan-US agreement to relocate the Futenma base away from a crowded urban area to reclaimed land on a quieter seaside area of Okinawa.
While Washington has insisted on sticking to the unpopular original plan, Hatoyama's government has been struggling to find an alternative site.
In the Kyodo poll, 54.4 percent of respondents said Hatoyama should step down if he failed to meet his end-of-May deadline.
An estimated 90,000 people protested in Okinawa on Sunday against any move to keep the base there while residents of the island of Tokunoshima, 200 kilometres (125 miles) away, have also rallied against reported plans to move the base there.
Kurt Campbell, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, returned to Washington Wednesday without talking to the media after meeting Japanese officials to discuss the base issue.
Reports said Tokyo appeared to have presented him a compromise idea on building a new military runway in Okinawa -- on a pile-supported platform which can be less damaging than landfill to coral reefs -- while moving some Marines to Tokunoshima.
Hatoyama did not mention the base issue at the union rally.
Nobuaki Koga, chairman of Rengo, which claims a membership of 6.8 million people, said he hoped the government would pursue its policies "by sincerely listening to people's voices.
"The change has just begun to create a society which attaches importance to people's lives."
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