Kan to be Japan`s new gov`t No. 2, Okada foreign minister

TOKYO, Sept. 5 Kyodo -
Acting Democratic Party of Japan President Naoto Kan is set to serve as state
strategy minister and concurrently deputy prime minister, and DPJ Secretary
General Katsuya Okada as foreign minister, DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama said
Saturday.
Although Hatoyama said he has no immediate plan to disclose the name of the
finance minister in his prospective Cabinet, DPJ Supreme Adviser Hirohisa Fujii
is being touted as a top candidate for the post, party lawmakers said.
If the appointment is finalized, Kan will take charge of the planned National
Strategy Bureau, a policymaking body the party plans to set up in the Cabinet
in an attempt to gain control over the bureaucracy, which has played a dominant
role under the Liberal Democratic Party's administration.
Kan will also serve as the DPJ's policy chief.
Hatoyama, who will become Japan's next prime minister, revealed that Azuma
Koshiishi, the head of the House of Councillors' caucus of the DPJ, will remain
in the post.
Hatoyama plans to formally present a list of key posts in the DPJ and his
prospective Cabinet to a meeting of the party leadership on Monday.
The informal appointment of the new finance minister will likely be made Monday
or later, party lawmakers said.
Hatoyama is also considering tapping Akira Nagatsuma, a DPJ lawmaker who helped
expose the government's pension bookkeeping problem, for a Cabinet post.
Masayuki Naoshima, the current DPJ's policy chief, is also expected to join the
new Cabinet in an economy ministerial post, including the finance minister,
party lawmakers said.
DPJ heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa has been nominated as secretary general of the party.
Ozawa is seen as the main architect of the DPJ's landslide victory in Aug. 30
House of Representatives election, routing the LDP, which has ruled Japan
nearly continuously for almost five decades.
Many DPJ lawmakers believe Ozawa's strong influence as DPJ secretary general is
necessary for next year's upper house election victory.
Hatoyama has already decided to appoint his top aide Hirofumi Hirano as chief
Cabinet secretary in his incoming government.
Hatoyama is set to be voted in as the nation's next prime minister in a special
Diet session on Sept. 16, and is expected to launch his Cabinet immediately.
The DPJ leader plans to ask prospective ruling coalition partners -- the Social
Democratic Party and the People's New Party -- to have one lawmaker join the
new Cabinet.
Within the two minor parties, calls are growing for their leaders -- the SDP's
Mizuho Fukushima and the PNP's Shizuka Kamei -- to take part in the new
Hatoyama Cabinet.
The DPJ will hold a joint meeting of the lawmakers from the two chambers, a
decision-making body, a day before the special Diet session is convened, to
formally decide on a series of appointments.
==Kyodo