Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers grilled Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in the Diet on Wednesday over recent verbal gaffes by his Cabinet ministers as well as his party's flip-flops on various key policies, and urged him to dissolve the Lower House and call a snap election.
During a Lower House plenary session, LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki slammed recent statements by key officials, including a joke made by then trade minister Yoshio Hachiro in which he claimed to have contaminated a reporter with radiation. In other instances, Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa described himself as an "amateur" on security issues, while health minister Yoko Komiyama overstepped her authority by calling for a tax hike on cigarettes.
Komiyama's remark reflected badly on Finance Minister Jun Azumi, who is in charge of tax revision, by revealing that the comment had been made without first consulting with Azumi.