Both the upper and lower houses of Japan’s parliament elected Finance Minister Naoto Kan to be the nation’s new prime minister Friday, following the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama from the post earlier this week.
Kan is the country’s fifth prime minister since 2006. The Diet, Japan’s parliament, voted after the Democratic Party of Japan tapped Kan to lead the party earlier Friday.
Kan, 63, vowed to rebuild Japan’s battered public finances, foster growth and promote regional stability amid growing fears about Chinese military power and tensions on the Korean peninsula.
“My task is to rebuild this nation,” said Kan, who was later confirmed as prime minister in the Democrat-dominated lower house. Media reports said he would wait until early next week before naming a cabinet.
With key upper house elections only weeks away, Kan implored party members to re-engage with the voters who had elected them by a landslide last August, ending more than 50 years of almost uninterrupted rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic party.
“We will work together as one in the face of the tough political situation … and fight as a united force,” he said.
Kan offered placatory words to the US, whose intransigence over the relocation of Futenma airbase was a major factor in his predecessor’s downfall.
During last year’s election campaign, Hatoyama had promised to move the marine corps’ Futenma base off Okinawa but, under pressure from the White House, was forced to accept an original agreement to move it from its city centre location to a more remote site on the island’s north coast.
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