TOKYO (AFP) - – Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama told party officials he would resign, less than nine
months after taking power following a landslide election win, media
reports said Wednesday.
He planned to appear at a special parliamentary meeting of
lawmakers from his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from 0100 GMT,
the reports said.
Hatoyama, who took power in September, has seen his poll ratings
plummet from more than 70 percent to below 20 percent amid a row
over an unpopular US army base on the southern island of
Okinawa.
Hatoyama initially promised to move the base off the island but
backtracked and decided to keep it there, caving in to Washington
but enraging Okinawans and his pacifist coalition partners the
Social Democrats.
The left-leaning group quit his three-party coalition on Sunday,
while Hatoyama's poll ratings plunged to a new low of below 20
percent.
Speculation that Hatoyama, 63, would quit has dominated
newspapers this week, and calls for him to resign have grown within
the DPJ.
Hatoyama met Tuesday with party secretary general Ichiro Ozawa,
the chief election strategist often dubbed the "Shadow Shogun" and
the power behind the premier's throne, and his party's upper house
caucus leader Azuma Koshiishi.
They had been due to meet again Wednesday as media speculation
grew that Hatoyama's days in office were numbered.
Public broadcaster NHK and other media then reported that
Hatoyama had told party sources he would quit, without specifying
when he would go.