Japan's Aso raises hackles with Nazi comment

TOKYO (Reuters) - Outspoken Japanese politician Taro Aso has offended the main opposition party with a comment about Nazis, days after winning a senior post in the ruling party that could help him become prime minister.

Aso, who missed out on becoming prime minister in a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership vote last year, is a frontrunner to win the top job if unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda cannot improve his voter ratings.

Upper house speaker Satsuki Eda of the opposition Democratic Party told Aso in a meeting that the electorate was shifting away from the LDP, the Nikkei financial daily and other papers said.

Apparently irritated, Aso told Eda: "If you look at history, you will see that as a result of the people moving away from the party of government, regimes like the Nazis have come into power," the Nikkei reported.

Yukio Hatoyama, Democratic Party secretary-general, called for an apology.

"This is very abusive language," he told reporters. "He should apologize."

Aso said he hoped Eda had not disclosed his comments to the public intentionally.

"I don't want to think that the speaker disclosed them on purpose, and I don't have any intention of comparing the Democrats to the Nazis," he told a news conference.

An official from Aso's office confirmed he had referred to Nazis but played down the significance of it.

"He was saying that the fact that debate has not been progressing in parliament is a serious problem and that the Nazi regime arose from a similar situation," said the staff member, who declined to be identified.

The opposition parties have dominated the upper house of parliament since an election just over a year ago and have used their power to block government legislation.

Aso has a history of making remarks that some consider offensive. In 2001, he said Japan should become the kind of country where "rich Jews" would want to live.

He has also made comments appearing to defend Japan's 20th century colonization of the Korean peninsula and joked about Alzheimer's disease, a sensitive topic in rapidly ageing Japan.

Aso is one of Japan's most popular politicians. A poll published in the Sankei Shimbun on Tuesday showed 23 percent of respondents would like him to be prime minister, compared with only 6.4 percent who felt current premier Yasuo Fukuda was the best person for the job.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by Rodney Joyce and Hugh Lawson)