Battle of nerves over poll / Ruling, opposition try to make use of financial law revival
Written by Writer on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Battle of nerves over poll / Ruling, opposition try to make use of financial law revival
The Yomiuri Shimbun
(Oct. 22, 2008)
The ruling coalition and the opposition camp are involved in a political tug-of-war as they try to create favorable momentum out of the current political situation, with Nov. 18 seen as a likely date for the start of campaigning for a House of Representatives election and Nov. 30 the most probable date for the election.
Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Tadamori Oshima of the Liberal Democratic Party on Monday called for his Democratic Party of Japan counterpart, Kenji Yamaoka, to take part in a prior discussion of a bill to revive an expired temporary law for strengthening the financial system.
The law, originally enacted in August 2004 before expiring in March, enabled the government to preemptively pump public funds into financial institutions, mainly regional ones, to prevent their collapse.
During Monday’s meeting, Oshima suggested a specific Diet schedule for the bill, saying it would be submitted to the Diet on Friday, passed by the lower house Tuesday and enacted next Thursday.
However, as there is mounting speculation that the lower house will be dissolved later this month, Yamaoka rejected Oshima’s timeline, saying it was not realistic given that the lower house would already have been dissolved by next Thursday.
Oshima tried to sidestep Yamaoka’s cunning remark by saying he did not know what would happen.
After the meeting, Yamaoka informed Oshima via telephone that the DPJ had rejected the idea of prior discussions of the bill and would not decide whether to support the bill until after it was submitted to the Diet.
The DPJ has included the reviving of the law in its policy package for dealing with the global financial crisis. As the party also wants an early dissolution of the lower house, many DPJ members are in favor of supporting the LDP’s move to reintroduce the law.
Tetsuro Fukuyama, deputy chairman of the DPJ’s Policy Research Committee, said Monday in a program on satellite broadcaster BS 11, “The philosophy of our policies [for dealing with the financial crisis] mostly overlap with those of the government, so we don’t intend to oppose them just for the sake of it.”
However, during Monday’s meeting among opposition Diet affairs committee chairmen, those of the Social Democratic Party and the People’s New Party claimed they should carefully discuss the bill in the Diet because it was still not clear whether the lower house would be dissolved in the immediate future.
Meanwhile, the ruling coalition of the LDP and New Komeito is eager to hold a question-time debate between the prime minister and leaders of the opposition parties.
They believe Prime Minister Taro Aso will be able to score an overwhelming victory over DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa in such a debate, handing the ruling coalition the advantage in the next lower house election.
But the DPJ has already rejected the debate, citing Ozawa’s ill health as one of the reasons. It also says the party will not accept the idea of holding a debate before the schedule for a dissolution of the lower house leading to the general election has become clear.
Oshima, however, instructed the LDP’s Chief Deputy Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Yoshitaka Murata on Monday to urge the DPJ to agree to holding the debate next Wednesday, saying, “Ozawa appeared on a Web cast on Sunday and didn’t look to be having any trouble with his throat.”
