Japanese Prime Minister Mr Yoshiro Mori, pressed by the opposition to
tell the public his plans, denied today he had expressed intent to resign at a meeting with ruling party elders at the weekend.
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In a move to limit his lame-duck status Mr Mori on Saturday told five top powerbrokers from his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that he would bring forward from September an election for the party presidency.
"Neither I nor the five LDP executives understood this as a statement of my intention to resign. I have absolutely no intention to state such plans," Mr Mori told a budget panel in parliament's Upper House.
"The media has been writing all along that [my resignation] was a done deal and they couldn't change that . . . So they had to write that it was a de facto resignation announcement," he said. Saturday's deal was widely viewed as a face-saving compromise to let the hugely unpopular prime minister stay in office a few more weeks while paving the way for him to resign next month.
While Mr Mori did not rule out the possibility the prime minister is unlikely to run in the next party presidential race expected to be held as early as April, thereby effectively abandoning his bid for the next premiership.