Noda reshuffles Cabinet in bid for tax hike support

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reshuffled his Cabinet Monday in a crucial bid to court the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party's support for securing parliamentary passage of contentious legislation to raise the sales tax in Japan.

It is the second time for Noda to rearrange his Cabinet since he assumed office in September, the last time coming in January in a similar attempt to push forward talks on the tax issue with the opposition camp by replacing two ministers censured by the opposition-controlled House of Councillors in December.

Bowing again to opposition pressure, Noda is expected to replace several Cabinet members, including Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka, and Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Takeshi Maeda, both of whom were censured in the upper house in April.

The premier is set to appoint Satoshi Morimoto, a professor at Takushoku University graduate school and a security issues pundit in Japan, as Tanaka's successor, political sources said.

He will be the country's first nonparliamentarian defense chief since World War II, including the period before the Defense Ministry was upgraded from the Defense Agency in 2007.

Morimoto entered the Foreign Ministry in 1979 after serving as a member of the Air Self-Defense Force and became adviser to the defense minister in 2009, according to his website.

Yuichiro Hata, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan's chief negotiator on parliamentary proceedings in the upper house, will replace Maeda, while Noda will promote Senior Vice Justice Minister Makoto Taki to replace Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa.

Senior vice reconstruction minister Tadahiro Matsushita of the DPJ's coalition partner People's New Party will become financial services minister to replace Shozaburo Jimi, who also doubles as postal privatization minister, they said.

Akira Gunji, a former senior vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, will become farm minister, replacing Michihiko Kano, who came under fire over spying allegations related to a Chinese diplomat involved in a farm ministry project.

Noda will retain 13 of the 18-member Cabinet and keep the DPJ executive lineup apart from Hata, who is to quit as head of the party's Diet Affairs Committee in the upper house, the sources said.

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Noda reshuffles Cabinet in bid for tax hike support