TOKYO, May 26 (Reuters) - Struggling Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on Wednesday he was confident his coalition would stick together, despite concerns a junior partner might withdraw over a plan to keep a U.S. airbase on Okinawa.
Hatoyama’s decision to abandon a pledge to try to shift the U.S. Marines’ Futenma air base off the southern island has made Okinawans angry, upset the tiny leftist Social Democratic Party (SDP), and eroded support for the government due to voter perception the premier has mishandled the issue.
SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima said on Tuesday she would not sign off on the U.S.-Japan deal, but stopped short of threatening to leave the coalition ahead of a mid-year upper house poll that the ruling bloc needs to win to avoid a parliamentary deadlock.
"I will continue consultations" with the SDP, Kyodo news agency quoted Hatoyama as telling reporters. "I think the coalition (government) will be maintained steadily."
Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has a huge majority in parliament’s lower house, which picks the prime minister, and SDP votes are no longer needed in the upper house to pass bills smoothly, since the Democrats and another small party now have a majority there.
But a rift in the coalition would be ill-timed ahead of an upper house election, expected in July, with the Democrats chances of an outright win fading as voter support slumps. A rift could see the Democrats lose the backing of SDP supporters in districts where the tiny party is not running its own candidates.
Still, some analysts say the Social Democrats’ departure could make it easier for Hatoyama’s government to make decisions by reducing policy gaps among coalition partners.
In the campaign that swept the Democrats to power last year, Hatoyama had raised hopes that Futenma could be moved off Okinawa, whose residents have long resented the heavy concentration of U.S. military bases there. But Hatoyama later backtracked, saying some marines had to stay to deter threats.
A formal agreement with the United States on the plan to move Futenma base from a crowded city to the Henoko area of the northern Okinawa city of Nago — largely in line with a 2006 U.S-Japan agreement — is expected to be announced on Friday and then the cabinet may adopt a resolution based on that deal.
The Yomiuri newspaper said the Social Democrats were leaning toward staying in the coalition on the premise that the cabinet resolution would not specify the exact location for the new base and promise continued consultations on the issue.
