Proposed Bank of Japan chief rejected
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Japan's upper house of parliament voted down the nomination of former Finance Ministry bureaucrat Koji Tanami as central bank chief, leaving that seat vacant from Wednesday for the first time since World War II.
The ruling coalition Tuesday proposed Tanami, 68, now governor of Japan Bank for International Cooperation, to head the Bank of Japan. The opposition, which controls the upper house of parliament, then announced it would veto him.
The political deadlock is a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's government, which has faced calls to show leadership as the stewards of the world's second-largest economy amid rising worries of a global financial downturn.
Last week, the opposition, led by the Democrats, rejected the government's first pick, Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Toshiro Muto -- also because he was a former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat.
The five-year term of current Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui ends Wednesday. If parliament fails to approve the nominees before the terms of Fukui and his deputies Muto and Kazumasa Iwata end at midnight, the positions may become vacant.
If the post of governor falls vacant because of death, resignation or parliament's failure to approve a successor by the time the governor's term expires, the job is temporarily taken over by a deputy governor. The departing governor, Fukui, would pick one of the two incoming deputy governors to serve as acting governor.