Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent "small travels" around Japan since his Liberal Democratic Party's landslide victory in the September election have sparked fresh criticism and backbiting among some elements of his own party and the bureaucracy, even though intraparty resistance forces were pretty much wiped out and his postal privatization agenda cleared the Diet.
One LDP source said of Koizumi's recent trips, "He's playing too much," while a government source groused, "He's not paying much attention."
In November, Koizumi visited the Yufuin spa resort in Oita Prefecture and saw some of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament in Fukuoka. This month he went to the Minami-Za theater in Kyoto to see kabuki.
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