Japan farm minister to resign in blow to PM - media

TOKYO, Sep 3 (Reuters) Japan's farm minister was set to resign tomorrow over illegal dealings at a farmers' group he headed, local media reported, handing a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just a week after he revamped his cabinet.

Abe's first cabinet was plagued by scandals and gaffes and the 52-year-old conservative leader named a new line-up last Monday to try to revive public support after the ruling coalition suffered a defeat in a July 29 election that gave the opposition a majority in parliament's upper house.

Agriculture Minister Takehiko Endo admitted yesterday that a farmers' aid group he headed had illegally taken 1.15 million yen from the state and that he had failed to disclose this to the prime minister before his appointment.

Kyodo news agency late today quoted an unidentified source in Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as saying that Endo had decided to quit and would submit his resignation tomorrow.

Abe's first appointee to the farm portfolio committed suicide over a separate scandal. The second was fired over reports of discrepancies in his political funding records.

Two other ministers in Abe's first cabinet, which was formed a year ago, were forced to resign for gaffes or scandals.

Support for Abe, who took power pledging to revise Japan's pacifist constitution and boost its global security profile, had rebounded to around 40 per cent according to some media surveys after he named the new cabinet packed with political veterans.

But doubts about his leadership capability remain. Analysts had said revelations of fresh misdeeds could end the honeymoon.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that another new appointee, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Yukiko Sakamoto, had also decided to resign after admitting that a campaign office in her constituency had misreported political fund outlays.

Another junior cabinet member also apologised over the weekend for misreporting expenditures, media reported.

PEER PRESSURE The main opposition Democratic Party, which rejigged its own leadership on Friday, is already gearing up for a lower house election, though none need be held until late 2009.

Endo apologised yesterday, but had said he did not intend to resign. The farmers' group, in his constituency in northern Japan, has not returned the money to state coffers.

Opposition party leaders have called on Endo to step down.

''He should first fulfill his responsibility to explain, and then he should resign,'' Mizuho Fukushima, head of the tiny opposition Social Democratic Party, told NHK television today.

''If he does not, we will pursue this with a censure motion.'' Opposition parties have the votes to pass a censure motion in the upper house. The motion would not be binding, but would be a major embarrassment and put pressure on Endo to resign.

Naoto Kan, a senior Democratic Party executive, also criticised Endo's actions and threatened to call him to testify in a session of parliament expected to start around September 10.

''The explanation given by the farm minister is not at all persuasive to the public nor to the Democratic Party,'' Kan told NHK today.

Pressure also came from Endo's ruling camp peers.

''Frankly, it is shameful and regrettable that such problems keep emerging one after another,'' Akihiro Ota, leader of the LDP's junior coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito, told the same TV programme.

REUTERS RS KP2143