Tokyo, August 31: Yukio Hatoyama, who led his Opposition party to a landslide win in Japan’s weekend elections on Monday promised to build consensus and avoid “arrogance” in pursuing his party’s political programme.
Media projections show that Hatoyama’s centre-left Democratic Party of Japan won 308 seats in the powerful 480-member Lower House of Parliament in the yesterday’s poll, ending more than 50 years of almost unbroken conservative rule.
“It is an incredible number,” Hatoyama told a live televised interview with public broadcaster NHK.
“We will not just bulldoze our policies.
“We must exercise patience and seek people’s understanding because we are given such latitude,” said Hatoyama, who is expected to replace Prime Minister Taro Aso by mid-September.
“We must shed ourselves of arrogance that might come from such a number,” said the 62-year-old US-trained engineering scholar.
Hatoyama is set to lead Japan as the world’s number two economy emerges from its worst recession in recent decades.
Hatoyama campaigned on a promise of change and people-centred politics against the business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), headed by Aso.
–Agencies