Policy continuity, factional power plays and surprise appointments characterized the new Cabinet launched Tuesday by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who hopes his new team will help him and his Liberal Democratic Party survive the months leading to next summer's Upper House election.

While keeping many of the key ministers from his old team, Mori also persuaded former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to join the new Cabinet, doing so only hours before he announced the ministerial lineup.

Hashimoto's participation and reform-minded former Financial Reconstruction Commission chief Hakuo Yanagisawa's return apparently allowed the embattled prime minister to save face and to spice up a new lineup that otherwise would have lacked a fresh image.

The reshuffle comes as Mori's popular support ratings in media polls continue to decline and as two key figures who had supported the prime minister since he assumed office in April abandoned him.

Last week, key LDP power broker Hiromu Nonaka resigned as the party's secretary general, while Economic Planning Agency chief Taichi Sakaiya snubbed Mori's request to remain in the new Cabinet.

Mori's reported attempt to invite Makiko Tanaka, a popular and outspoken lawmaker who had openly criticized the prime minister, into the fold failed after meeting with strong opposition from the party's largest faction, led by Hashimoto.

Leaders of that faction opposed giving Tanaka a Cabinet job after all the criticism she had voiced against Mori and the party's mainstream lawmakers.

Hashimoto's faction may have dealt itself a strong hand last week when Nonaka, who belongs to the group, departed his top party executive post. His action was taken as an indication that the powerful faction was beginning to distance itself from the unpopular prime minister.

Mori, then, must have greeted Hashimoto's acceptance of a portfolio with a sigh of relief. But he didn't stop there. Five Hashimoto faction members were given posts in the 17-member Cabinet -- a sign that the prime minister will continue to rely heavily on the group.

Mori and his aides stressed the importance of policy continuity in the new team, especially since it faces the important task of overseeing the reorganization of government ministries and agencies in just a month.

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, International Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma, Construction Minister Chikage Ogi, Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda were reappointed.

Other than that, Mori got caught up in the LDP's trademark factional politics with his new selections. Standing on shaky ground, he apparently had no choice other than to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, whose primary concern has always been to maintain the balance of power among party factions.

After Mori decided last week to give one Cabinet post to each of the LDP's coalition allies New Komeito and New Conservative Party, the remaining 15 were distributed among the LDP factions in accordance with their strength.

But the process was not without trouble, as signs of discord were observed among the mainstream factions that had so far supported Mori.

Competing for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which will take over from the current MITI on Jan. 6, the Hashimoto faction and another group jointly led by the LDP policy chief Shizuka Kamei and former Management and Coordination Agency chief Takami Eto engaged in some fierce infighting that threatened to delay Mori's Cabinet reshuffle plans.

The post eventually went to Hiranuma of the Eto-Kamei faction, and Fukushiro Nukaga, a former Defense Agency chief who was recommended to the post by the Hashimoto faction, was appointed state minister in charge of economic and fiscal affairs plus IT-related policy matters.

Meanwhile, the followers of former LDP Secretary General Koichi Kato and ex-party policy chief Taku Yamasaki, whose rebellion against Mori in the Diet vote on a no-confidence motion late last month ended in an anticlimactic failure, were left in the cold.

Some 40 Lower House members who joined Kato and Yamasaki in refusing to support Mori by abstaining from the Diet vote were blacklisted from consideration. Even Okiharu Yasuoka, a Yamasaki faction member who did not join his factional boss in his stance on the no-confidence motion, was denied reappointment as justice minister.

Kato's clout in his own faction meanwhile appears to be declining further, with the group seemingly headed for a breakup. Senior members of the clan who did not follow Kato's lead in the rebellion against Mori have formed a new group in their attempt to distance themselves from Kato.

Kato was apparently unable to play any role in the Cabinet reshuffle or in the formation of the new top LDP executive team.

But Makoto Koga, a senior Kato faction member who remained loyal to Mori, was given the powerful post of party secretary general. Koga is known as being close to Nonaka, who effectively nominated him for the post.