 Two-party system is what DPJ succumbs to by joining ruling coalition: Shii Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo during his speaking tour of Hokkaido spoke in Sapporo City on June 11 on the final stage of the current Diet session. He said that Diet discussions have revealed that the essence of the on-going efforts to establish s two-party system is a process to get the Democratic Party of Japan to become part of the ruling coalition. Shii said that the JCP in this situation is playing a major role in the following five issues. The JCP is opposed to changing the Constitution, including its war-renouncing Article 9, and grassroots movements are developing to stop such a revision, while the DPJ has proposed revising Article 9 in the constitutional research commissions of both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors. The DPJ is taking the lead in calling for increasing the consumption tax rate, and the JCP is the only party to oppose it. The DPJ has revealed its inconsistency by voting for the adverse revision of the nursing care insurance system which it had previously criticized in Diet discussions. The DPJ supports a bill to virtually change for the worse the law for the disabled in the name of enhancing their self-help. The JCP calls for the bill to be withdrawn. Although the DPJ pretends to be confronting the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties on postal services privatization, it is in fact the most vocal mouthpiece of business circles demanding the postal savings and post office life insurance to be downsized and abolished. Shii said that the JCP is firmly opposed to extending the Diet term to enact these bad bills. He said, "At issue in national politics is not a choice between the LDP and the DPJ. The real confrontation is between bad policies of the all-as-ruling parties and the JCP policies. - Akahata June 12, 2005 |