Asia Times: Party platforms begin to emerge


	July 13, 2001	atimes.com

Japan

Party platforms begin to emerge

TOKYO - The leaders of Japan's seven main political parties agreed at a Diet debate ahead of the official opening of the campaign for the 19th House of Councilors election on July 29 that the economy continues to weaken. The party leaders failed to propose specific measures, however, only expressing their reluctance to let public works spending lead the way to economic recovery.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated his basic position of bringing about recovery by promoting structural reforms without focusing on stock prices. Asked about additional spending to boost the economy, he replied, "It is still too early to consider a supplementary budget because the regular budget was just implemented in April."

He also said he wants to consolidate some 3,300 municipalities into 300 or less.

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, said, "There will be no structural reforms without a change of government. The emergence of a dominant ruling party could imperil democracy," indicating he intends to seek a dissolution of the Lower House after the Upper House election to force the formation of a differently configured government. But he rejected the possibility of a coalition with the Japanese Communist Party.

Takenori Kanzaki, head of New Komeito, said, "We want to build safety nets in such areas as employment and welfare to deal with the negative fallout from reforms."

Commenting on social security expenses, Ichiro Ozawa, head of the Liberal Party said, "We would allocate consumption tax revenue specifically to social security."

Chikage Ogi, head of the New Conservative Party, also called for using the consumption tax to finance the social security system rather than insurance premiums.

Kazuo Shii, head of the Japanese Communist Party, proposed consumption tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy. He criticized the disposal of nonperforming loans proposed by the Koizumi government, arguing that the measure will lead to massive bankruptcies of small and midsize companies.

Commenting on the implications of the proposed visit by Japanese politicians, including the prime minister, to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese war dead are enshrined, Takako Doi, head of the Social Democratic Party, said, "We will maintain our stance to protect Article 9 of the Constitution."

Meanwhile, a new proportional representation system will be introduced in Japan with the Upper House election slated for July 29 in line with the revised Public Offices Election Law enacted last year. The system allows voters to cast ballots for either a political party or a candidate.

Under the old system, voters chose only a party, with candidates pre-selected by the parties themselves. With the new system, candidates will be chosen according to the number of votes they receive from those casting ballots while seats will be allotted to parties based on the total number of votes gained by candidates and their parties. If a candidate wins a large number of votes, the total number of votes for the party will rise, which may enable other candidates of the same party to be elected. On the other hand, under the new system some candidates may be elected with less votes than those garnered by losing candidates running for other parties.

The new approach will also allow individual candidates to run election campaigns, in contrast to the old system which allowed electioneering only under the auspices of a particular party. The new system will, according to many, push up campaign costs to the point where local candidates may spend as much as they traditionally expended in national constituency campaigns.

The complexity of a system in which voters can select either a party or a candidate will make vote-counting more complex. Although ballot-counting will be conducted throughout the country on voting day as in the past, it is expected that counting will continue until morning of the day after voting in some districts, especially urban areas.

Political parties are counting on support organizations, such as industry bodies and labor unions, as well as well-known candidates to increase their ability to attract votes under a system where name-recognition counts for so much.

The Liberal Democratic Party, which hopes to attract votes on high approval ratings for the Cabinet formed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, is counting on the hugely popular leader's planned campaign visits to 19 prefectures before attending the Group of Eight summit in Genoa later this month.

The Democratic Party of Japan, which has had difficulty differentiating itself since the emergence of Koizumi, will field candidates supported by labor unions and aims to attract votes through the candidacy of several famous individuals signed on to run for the party.

New Komeito, one of the parties in the ruling coalition, is appealing mainly for votes for individual candidates and hopes to raise the profile of its candidates through the election.

The Japanese Communist Party plans to appeal for people to vote for the party on principle.

(Asia Pulse)

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