Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama Resigns over Failure to Change Nation's Domestic Policy

Japan's prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, today said he would resign just eight months after he took office, after failing to honour election promises to bring sweeping change to domestic policy and fundamentally alter the country's relations with the US.

Photo: Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama Resigns over Failure to Change Nation's Domestic Policy

The world's second biggest economy faces yet another period of uncertainty after Hatoyama, whose Democratic party won by a landslide last year, became Japan's fourth prime minister in as many years to step down after a year or less in power, according to Guardian.

Hatoyama is the fourth straight Japanese prime minister who did not stay in power longer than a year, reigniting worries about the future of a country fraught with problems ranging from a two-decade-old economic slump to an aging population.

''The public has gradually refused to hear me. It's a shame and I'm solely to blame for it,'' Hatoyama said at an urgent general assembly of his Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers, his eyes glistened with tears.

Hatoyama said the public had turned their backs on him mainly for two reasons -- the fiasco over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station, which cost his ruling coalition the loss of the Social Democratic Party, and ''money and politics'' scandals involving himself and DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, Kyodo News reports.