Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori launched his new Cabinet Tuesday on the strength of an absolute majority won by the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the Conservative Party in the June 25 Lower House election.
Immediately before the inauguration of the second Mori Cabinet, several political journalists, including myself, met with former Lower House Vice Speaker Kozo Watanabe to discuss effects of the election on Japanese politics. Watanabe, a former member of the LDP faction once headed by the late Prime Ministers Kakuei Tanaka and Noboru Takeshita, successfully ran in the general election as an independent and was re-elected to the vice speaker's post Tuesday.
Watanabe made the following points:
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