Tokyo Governor steps down to found new party

JAPAN: Beijing-baiting Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara said he was stepping down Thursday to start a new national political party ahead of an expected general election.

“As of today, I will resign as Tokyo governor,” Ishihara told a news conference.

“I’m planning to return to national politics. I want to do so by forming a new party with my associates.”

The acerbic Ishihara, who was elected for a fourth four-year term as governor of one of the world’s biggest cities last April, said he saw much wrong with national politics.

“There are several contradictions, big contradictions, which we hope the state itself will solve,” he told reporters. “One contradiction, bigger than anything, is the Japanese constitution, which was imposed by the (post World War II US) occupying army, and is rendered in ugly Japanese.”

Like many on the right of Japanese politics, novelist-turned-politician Ishihara objects amongst other things to Article 9 of the constitution, which bars Japan from waging war.

AFP