Shizuka Kamei, policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Sunday that Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori should implement the ruling coalition's emergency economic package before the party holds the election to pick his successor.

"Prime Minister Mori should decide on his own when to call the presidential election. If the prime minister thinks it is better to let someone other than him to do it (implement the package), he will be irresponsible," Kamei said on a Fuji TV program.

The remarks by Kamei, who is chairman of the LDP's Policy Research Council, contrast with the view within the LDP that its presidential poll should be called before the package is set in motion.

"The emergency economic package will be high on the agenda at the Japan-U.S. summit. He (Mori) cannot say 'I will not do it and advance it (the LDP presidential poll)' after pledging to carry it out at the summit," Kamei said.

The LDP presidential election was originally set for September, but Mori, facing increasing pressure to resign, moved it up. Many LDP members are worried that the LDP will lose the House of Councilors election in July due to Mori's extremely low popularity.

Mori is slated to hold his first summit with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House today.

Kamei nudges BOJ

Shizuka Kamei, policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Sunday he expects the Bank of Japan's policy-setting panel to reinstate the so-called "zero-interest-rate" policy at its meeting today.

"I think it should be revived, and the situation is moving in that direction," Kamei said on a Fuji TV program.

Kamei, who is chairman of the LDP's Policy Research Council, metBOJ Gov. Masaru Hayami at a meeting of top economic policymakers last Friday and told him that the central bank should make a brave decision to relax monetary policy quantitatively so as to boost liquidity in the financial markets.

Kamei said he also told Hayami that the central bank should completely fulfill its responsibilities.

The nine-member BOJ Policy Board is slated to meet today amid speculation it will vote in favor of a further relaxation of its already loose monetary policy, with a possible return to the zero-rate policy.

Under that policy, which was in effect between February 1999 and last August, the BOJ guided the closely watched unsecured overnight call money rate to nearly zero.