What Gloria Arroyo Can Learn Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama

[pioneer]

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced his resignation after just eight months in office.

He was forced out after breaking an election pledge to move an unpopular US military base away from the southern island of Okinawa.

The move comes as his Democratic Party of Japan (DJP) struggles to revive its chances in an election due in July.

The centre-left DPJ's election landslide last year ended half a century of conservative rule in Japan.

But wrangling over the base distracted attention from their broader aims - pursuing a more equal alliance with the US, a bigger welfare state, and to seize control of policy-making from the bureaucracy, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo.

Mr Hatoyama, 63, was Japan's fourth prime minister in four years. - BBC