Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Cabinet plans to submit a bill to the regular Diet session that begins Monday to grant local voting rights to permanent foreign residents, ruling party sources said.
The move, however, will likely draw fire from Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), one of the junior partners of the Democratic Party of Japan, the sources said, while the other partner, the Social Democratic Party, will probably support the bill.
Hatoyama said he believes he can win support from within the ruling bloc.