Despite Prime Minister Taro Aso's plummeting poll numbers, the majority of his party's top decision-making body apparently backed his contentious cash handout program at a closed meeting Thursday, one participant said.
According to Koichi Kato, former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, few in the roughly 30-member body appreciated former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's threat to boycott a widely expected revote on a supplementary budget to finance the ¥2 trillion program.
Koizumi said the LDP-New Komeito ruling bloc shouldn't try to force enactment of the bill, which is widely expected to be rejected in the opposition-controlled Upper House, with a revote in the coalition-dominated Lower House.