Analysis: Kan clings on but at what cost to Japan?

A LAME duck leader, a combative opposition that can block legislation, and a ruling party divided by feuds over how best to solve the country's long-term ills. It's back to square one in Japan.

When the dusts settles, that may be the result of the political drama that concluded yesterday with a promise by prime minister Naoto Kan to resign once he has brought the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant under control.

The unpopular leader's pledge was a last-minute deal to keep rivals in his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from backing a no-confidence motion that would have forced a snap election.

The bargain has averted a political vacuum as the government struggles to rebuild a vast area devastated by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, and contain radiation leaks at Tokyo Electric Power Company's stricken plant.

But beneath the surface, the political system remains in dire straits. "Nothing is made any easier by this decision," said Columbia University professor Gerry Curtis. "They will spend all their time manoeuvring… and who is going to think about foreign policy, about Tohoku (the tsunami-devastated northeast] or about anything of significance?"

No sooner had Mr Kan survived the no-confidence vote than signs of friction resurfaced, with a former PM who had helped broker the deal calling his party deputy a "liar".

One reason for the lingering tension is that Mr Kan did not say when he would step down, which could come in a matter of months but without a timetable his pledge is vague.

Optimists said the deal might persuade the opposition, who control the upper house and can block bills, to agree to a law enabling the government to borrow more to fund nearly half of a $1 trillion budget for this fiscal year. But the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) yesterday repeated its demand for more money to be left in consumers' pockets. It also threatened to censure Mr Kan in the upper house.