Japan Press Weekly

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2012 November 14 - 20 [POLITICS]

3rd political pole no different from LDP policies

Print and TV broadcast media are portraying a pattern for the general election as “major two parties versus a third pole” or as a “three-cornered battle” among the DPJ, the LDP, and a third political force. What is the real axis of confrontation?

Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru and former Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro held a joint press conference on November 17 in Osaka City and officially announced that Ishihara’s newborn political party “Taiyo no To” will be dissolved to merge into Hashimoto’s “Nippon Ishin no Kai”. The capricious ex-governor tore up an agreement made just two days before with Nagoya City Mayor Kawamura Takeshi for a merger with his party “Genzei Nippon”.

“The media touts this move for an emerging third political pole but its components are, in effect, the same as LDP policies,” said Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo to reporters on November 18 regarding the day-to-day changes in political alliances-and-ruptures.

Shii said, “In terms of issues on nuclear energy, a regional free trade agreement, and taxes, they are all the same. What they are engaging is just a tug-of-war within the framework of LDP policies. There is no point of contention.”

They are more or less in favor of the consumption tax increase as Ishihara asserts is a trifle, continuation of the use of nuclear energy, promotion of constitutional revision, and Japan’s participation in the free trade pact.

As to politicians who have joined the so-called third political pole: Ishihara is a former LDP Dietmember; other Taiyo no To members were part of a parliamentary coalition with the LDP in the Upper House; and the roster of Nippon Ishin no Kai includes many former lawmakers of the LDP and the DPJ.

Even former LDP President Kono Yohei, also former Lower House speaker, said, “This is just another group of right-leaning figures and is nothing new.”

The real axis of confrontation lies in whether to choose the conventional three parties (DPJ, LDP, or Komei) or the third pole which are all incapable of doing away with old-style politics, or choose the JCP which is capable of cutting free of rhetoric and cliche and moving ahead with real reform, Shii expressed his determination to emphasize this point to voters during the election campaign.