ニュース 2009/02/05 Kan says PM’s comment that he opposed postal privatisation calls his “legitimacy into question” On January 5, DPJ Acting President Naoto Kan held his regular press conference. He referred to the comment made by Prime Minister Aso in the House of Representatives Committee on Budget, in response to a question by the DPJ’s Nobutaka Tsutsui, in which the Prime Minister said: “I was opposed to postal privatisation”. Kan said that this statement called Aso’s own legitimacy into question, and called for a replay of the general election. Kan said that the current House of Representatives was made up of a huge ruling party contingent who had agreed to postal privatisation, and since Aso had been approved as Prime Minister by people who held a different opinion to himself, this called the administration’s legitimacy into question. Kan went on to criticise the statement made by Aso in the budget committee that “I never said that I would not receive the fixed sum economic stimulus payment”, commenting: “one can say he is the ultimate flip flopper.” Furthermore, Kan responded to criticisms from senior LDP politicians that the DPJ was delaying debate on the second supplementary budget in the House of Councillors, saying that the opposite was the case and, “It is the LDP that has been delaying the debate all this week.” In response to a question from a journalist regarding the delay in obtaining Diet approval for Tokyo’s bid for the Olympic Games, Kan said, “There is opposition to Tokyo governor Ishihara within the ruling parties. The Tokyo metropolitan government has not done enough groundwork.” He denied that the DPJ’s Tokyo chapter and DPJ members of the Tokyo Metropolitan government were opposed to the bid.