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Lawmakers approve Bank of Japan governor
2008-04-08
Japan's opposition-controlled upper house of parliament endorsed the Bank of Japan's acting chief as its governor Wednesday, ending a power vacuum at the central bank's helm by approving the government's third candidate for the job. However, the chamber rejected the nomination of a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat as the central bank's deputy governor, prolonging a dispute that has turned into a major embarrassment for the scandal-battered administration of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. A stalemate over who should head the Bank of Japan had festered for weeks as the opposition turned the decision into a political issue. The five-year term of former Bank of Japan chief Toshihiko Fukui expired March 19. The opposition, led by the Democrats, said former bureaucrats at the powerful Finance Ministry were too politically connected and could endanger the independence of the central bank of the world's second largest economy. They voted down two previous candidates for the top job for that reason. In the latest balloting, shown live on the Internet, the upper house approved Masaaki Shirakawa, now interim governor of the Bank of Japan, to permanently take that seat by a vote of 231-7. But it voted down the nomination of Hiroshi Watanabe 121-115 as one of two deputy governors. The nomination for the posts need approval from both houses of parliament, and votes on both were set there for later in the day, although Watanabe already is out of the running because of his rejection in the upper house. The ruling coalition controls the lower house, and so Shirakawa, nominated by the prime minister, will have no problems clearing that house.
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