Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday tapped Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada as the party's secretary general, in what amounts to a test of whether Kan can achieve party unity after Tuesday's presidential election.

With that key party position filled, Kan is now racing to assemble the Cabinet lineup as early as Friday and get his government moving.

"Considering the people's feelings that (pushed for) a change in government, I cannot be thinking of various things," Okada told reporters after he met with Kan. "It is fate."