2ND LD: New Komeito chief Ota set to resign, Yamaguchi to be named new head

TOKYO, Sept. 3 Kyodo -
(EDS: ADDING INFO IN 3RD GRAF, UPDATING 6TH GRAF)
New Komeito party chief Akihiro Ota announced Thursday that he will step down
to take responsibility for his party's heavy defeat in Sunday's House of
Representatives election, prompting party officials to launch talks to select
policy chief Natsuo Yamaguchi as his successor.
''The entire responsibility for the results of the lower house election rests
with me and I have decided to resign as head,'' Ota, who was unseated in the
election, told a press conference after his resignation was approved at a key
party meeting.
Party negotiations to appoint Yamaguchi, 57, as Ota's successor are being
wrapped up, sources familiar with the matter said. New Komeito is expected to
endorse Yamaguchi's appointment as new leader on Tuesday at an extraordinary
meeting of nationwide party representatives after party executives decide on
the plan on Monday.
Yamaguchi, who assumed his current party post in 2008, was elected to the lower
house from Tokyo in 1990. Following unsuccessful bids to return to the house in
1996 and 2000, he was elected to the upper house in 2001 and is currently
serving his second term there.
Along with Ota, Secretary General Kazuo Kitagawa, who also failed to retain his
seat, said he will also call it quits, the sources said.
Yoshihisa Inoue, 62, head of New Komeito's election headquarters, is emerging
as a leading candidate to succeed Kitagawa.
New Komeito, the junior coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party, lost in all of the single-seat constituencies it contested in Sunday's
election, seeing its presence in the lower house fall from 31 seats to 21.
The party did not include Ota, Kitagawa and six other candidates it fielded in
the single-seat districts on its proportional representation lists on the
assumption they would win in their constituencies, a strategy that cost New
Komeito dearly.
The party's top post ''should be assumed by a parliamentarian because, as an
opposition party, it is important to promote our party's policies through Diet
deliberations,'' Ota said.
His successor should be ''a leader capable of securing a victory in the House
of Councillors election next summer,'' he said, expressing hopes of major gains
for the party in the upper house election.
Ota and Kitagawa offered their resignations at an executive meeting earlier
Thursday and their offers were approved later at a meeting of the party's top
executives. Both men will remain in their posts until their successors are
decided.
Commenting on developments within the party, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo
Kawamura told a news conference that the LDP hopes to continue discussing
policies with New Komeito, based on their partnership over the past decade.
==Kyodo