Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi got a harsh dose of reality Friday when a group of 55 lawmakers in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party formed a group opposing his reform programs.
The lawmakers gathered in a Diet facility Friday morning to inaugurate the group, even as LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki sent documents to all the party's lawmakers calling for restraint over comments opposing Koizumi's reforms.
"The true path we should take is to achieve an economic recovery while rooting out deflation," Katsutoshi Matsuoka, one of the new group's core members, told the gathering, in contrast to the prime minister's pledge to tackle the government's huge debts.