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- <text id=91TT0841>
- <title>
- Apr. 22, 1991: World Notes:Japan
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Apr. 22, 1991 Nancy Reagan:Is She THAT Bad?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 57
- World Notes
- JAPAN
- Curtains for Kaifu?
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Will Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu become a gulf-war casualty?
- That possibility was raised last week after Kaifu's ruling
- Liberal Democratic Party was badly jolted by the 2-to-1 defeat
- of its candidate for the governorship of Tokyo. The humiliating
- upset prompted the resignation of the party's chief political
- operative, Ichiro Ozawa, who took responsibility for the loss.
- Ruling party insiders say that Ozawa had agreed to try to
- prevent re-election of the L.D.P.'s incumbent governor as part
- of a deal with the opposition, in exchange for passage of
- Japan's additional $9 billion gulf-war contribution in the Diet.
- </p>
- <p> The L.D.P. fiasco has stirred speculation that Kaifu's
- days may be numbered--or at the very least that his chances
- of re-election next October are doomed. "Without Ozawa in one
- of the party top posts, Kaifu could be a lame-duck Prime
- Minister," observed a Japanese politician. Others speculate that
- Ozawa's sudden downfall might trigger the comeback of former
- Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, still considered one of the
- most powerful politicians in Japan despite his resignation two
- years ago over an influence-peddling scandal.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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