Japanese Officials Search for New Leader

TOKYO--Outgoing Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and officials of Japan's governing party met yesterday to search for a new leader untouched by scandal and able to restore public trust in the government.

Takeshita, condemned in public opinion polls for his involvement in and handling of a huge stock and bribery scandal, announced earlier yesterday he was resigning "to restore the people's trust in government."

But no clear successor emerged after a day filled with meetings by Takeshita and other leaders of the governing Liberal Democratic Party.

Whomever the party chooses as its new leader is assured of becoming prime minister because of the party's majority in Parliament.

Japanese news reports said former Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ito, now one of the party's three key leaders, was approached about acting as an interim prime minister.

Ito, 75, is chair of the party's Executive Council and untainted by money or stock questions. But he is diabetic, and said yesterday that a younger leader should take over.

The question of timing also was unclear. Takeshita, 65, said he would resign after Parliament passes the budget for the 1989 fiscal year that began April 1. But the budget has been delayed by an opposition boycott of Parliament over the stock-trading scandal.

Takeshita said he would go ahead with a planned nine-day trip to five Southeast Asian nations beginning Saturday, indicating he hoped Parliament would pass the budget in early May.

Other potential successors to Takeshita include former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, 84; ex-Deputy Prime Minister Shin Kanemaru, 74; Masaharu Gotoda, 74, who served as key aide to former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone; and Michita Sakata, 72, speaker of the House of Representatives.

Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Shintaro Abe and Kiichi Miyazawa, both leading candidates when Takeshita was chosen party leader in November 1987, are considered out of the running now because of their own ties to the scandal.

Miyazawa was one of three Cabinet ministers who resigned because of links to the scandal involving Japan's giant Recruit Co., an information services conglomerate. In addition, prosecutors arrested 14 people, including two former vice ministers, on bribery or securities law violation.

The Recruit scandal broke last summer with revelations the company had sold cut-price shares in a real estate subsidiary to more than 150 politicians, bureaucrats, business leaders and media executives.

The shares, often bought with money lent by another Recruit subsidiary, yielded fat profits when sold after the subsidiary went public in 1986.