Despite repeated questioning in parliament on Friday
The manoeuvre appeared to buy Kan time to prepare an extra herve leger budget to pay for rebuilding from the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which also triggered the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
But bickering quickly resurfaced after Kan’s comments at a late-night news conference suggested he wanted to stay on until damaged reactors at the crippled nuclear plant achieved a stable “cold shutdown”, a process expected to take at least until January and probably longer.
“If he cannot keep his promise, he is a fraud,” former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who brokered Thursday’s last-minute pact with Kan, told reporters.
“If he doesn’t keep his word, I will take decisive action.”
Hatoyama told reporters on Thursday that Kan had agreed to quit after drafting the extra herve leger clothing budget, a process he said could be finished this month.
Despite repeated questioning in parliament on Friday, Kan again refused to be pinned down on when he will step down.
The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has charged that Kan was incapable of dealing with the nuclear accident and of leading the effort to rebuild Japan’s tsunami-devastated northeast, also weighed in.
“He has broken his promise. It is inappropriate for him to cling to power having expressed his intention to resign,” Kyodo news agency quoted LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki as saying.
“We cannot cooperate with a lame-duck government.”
Opposition parties, which control parliament’s upper house and can block bills, have insisted that Kan step down before they will cooperate on implementing policies.
Some LDP lawmakers have threatened to submit a non-binding censure motion against Kan in the less powerful upper house.
Kan’s rivals in the DPJ, which swept to power in 2009 for the first time promising change, have been angered by his abrasive style and fear his low voter ratings would hurt them at the next general election, which must be held by 2013.
Many are also irked by Kan’s shift toward fiscal reform and away from costly campaign promises on initiatives to put more money with households
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