Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should step down if he puts off a consumption tax increase again.

Well, I can't really see why he should. And except that it would represent some kind of minor political coup that may reflect slightly favourably on his party I cannot see why Okada is calling for this contingency. In fact, by saying so he may harden Abe's resolve to actually increase the consumption tax. Is that what Okada wants? Making meaningless connections and blowing political raspberries all just seems to demonstrate how emasculated Okada and the opposition are.

He should step down in any case... and the sooner the better...

I agree with FightingViking.

He should step down. He obviously doesn't have any kind of plan or direction.

Abe's stepping down would be a step up for everyone else.

Abe never had a plan. Abe had a list of arrows he had no idea how to implement. In any case it isn't just a bad PM that is the issue. It is a system that is so insular that it is incapable of change unless faced with a mortal threat. So far that threat has not appeared. As long as Japan can get by without the wealthy and the corporations losing too much they will. Things have been getting harder on working people here for quite some time, the lack of representative government for ordinary people, means they have no hope of it getting any better. Rough roads are all that we can expect.

And who would replace him?

His major side-kick Aso is a liability, and there is really no-one else who is PM material, so sadly it would be back to the usual musical chairs and PM for a year, as payback for support.

I want Ozawa for PM.

"Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should step down...." what difference will it make? New PM will also lead same old political party with same old policies.

He obviously doesn't have any kind of plan or direction.

Oh, he had a plan, all right. The plan was to devalue everone's savings, make everything cost more, and funnel money to the super rich on one side, while rattling sabers with China, changing the law to take rights and freedoms away form the people, and building up the military on the other side.

Attacking the public from two angles meant that the people could not present a united front against him and will each concede half of the decrease in quality of life just as long as the half they care more about remains intact. Just ask a typical Abe critic: he or she will probably either rail against devaluation and inflation, saying that stationing a bunch of soldiers on a faraway island, or redefining what a government secret is, isn't as important as being able to save money and buy food -- or will be on the anti-war side, insisting that retaining the pacifist Constitution is so important that having to pay more for goods every year and having one's savings destroyed is small potatoes.

Divisa et vincere has been a solid political strategy since Roman times. And Abe, Kuroda, and the LDP have used it on all of us.

Abe never had a plan.

You are incorrect. Abe did have a plan, a plan to rewrite the constitution and to create a military/industrial complex in Japan. Abe pulled the old bait-and-switch on the Japanese people, gaining a strong mandate by telling people he would reform the economy and turn it around. Instead, he used his mandate to increase the power of the government via his new secrecy laws, and to change article 9 of the constitution. In these matters he is making good progress.

shonanbb,

I want Ozawa for PM.

So do I, but there's very little chance of him getting it. He doesn't brownnose the right people.

I want AKB48 for prime minister. They're smarter because they'd probably have the common sense to say that the government should reduce spending by 2% instead of increasing the consumption tax 2%.

What an idiot!! So IF he goes along with the tax increase and destroys the economy he can continue?!