Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday reshuffled his cabinet in order to boost his popularity and improve ties with opposition parties, Japan Today reported.Kan recruited veteran lawmakers who are known to be supporters of fiscal consolidation and trade liberalization. The revamp took place ahead of the 150-day regular parliament session due to begin on January 24.
The upcoming session will beheld in order to discuss the passage of the fiscal 2011 budget proposed by the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). It is expected that the budget and related bills will face though opposition from the other parties.
PM Kan, also the DPJ president, revamped his cabinet by introducing four newcomers as he is trying to deal with the internal struggles that have divided the DPJ party. The division was caused by the strife between the leadership and lawmakers backing power broker Ichiro Ozawa.
Ozawa will be indicted over a political funds scandal. In response, Kan did not offer any key posts to lawmakers closely affiliated with Ozawa, his rival on the DPJ presidential election last September.
Kan appointed Yukio Edano, acting secretary general of the DPJ, as the new chief cabinet secretary. Edano will replace Yoshito Sengoku after the latter was censured last year by the opposition over the handling of a territorial row with China.
The most surprising designation was Kaoru Yosano, a fiscal conservative who left a small opposition party. He was picked as minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy, and social security reform.
The other two changes in Kan's cabinet were Satsuki Eda, a former upper house president, who was named as justice minister, and Kansei Nakano, a former upper house vice president, who became National Public Safety Commission chief.
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