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Muto out; DPJ floats two names for BOJ
Like foiled pick, both ex-Finance
bureaucrats
Kyodo News
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080317a1.html
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda ruled out
Sunday proposing once-rejected Toshiro Muto as the next Bank of Japan governor,
sources in the Democratic Party of Japan said, while the DPJ floated two names
it may accept as the top central banker.
According to the DPJ sources, Fukuda's
abandonment of Muto, deputy BOJ governor for the past five years and a former
top Finance Ministry bureaucrat, was conveyed to the party Sunday evening.
But it was not immediately clear if
Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party offered a compromise candidate after ditching
Muto.
Earlier in the day, DPJ Secretary General
Yukio Hatoyama indicated during a TV program that the DPJ may approve Haruhiko
Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank, or Hiroshi Watanabe, special
adviser to the Japan Center for International Finance, as the next BOJ
governor.
"We heard (they) are good," Hatoyama
said on a TV Asahi program.
Last Wednesday, the opposition-controlled
House of Councilors voted down the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling
bloc's nomination of Muto, while the House of Representatives, where the ruling
camp holds a majority, endorsed his candidacy the following day.
The opposition parties argue Muto's past
stint as vice finance minister, the top bureaucrat at the ministry, would hurt
the BOJ's independence from the government in policy decisions, despite his vow
to the contrary.
Like Muto, however, both Kuroda and
Watanabe are also former top Finance Ministry bureaucrats, except they built
their careers in international monetary affairs.
Hatoyama apparently failed to provide a
reasonable explanation as to why the DPJ believes Kuroda and Watanabe would be
free from government pressure.
"We have not said all former Finance Ministry officials are disqualified"
for the BOJ governorship, Hatoyama said.
ニュースの続きは、
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080317a1.html
The Japan Times: Monday, March 17, 2008
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