Japan Press Weekly

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2013 January 23 - 29 [POLITICS]

Which party can stand up to Abe Cabinet?

The first ordinary session of the Diet opened on January 28 after a coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komei Party regained power. In the session, it will be called into question which party can confront the Abe Cabinet.

In his first policy speech, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo repeated the word “crisis” 14 times. However, Abe was the very man who brought on crises six years ago as the then prime minister. While emphasizing the importance of learning lessons from the past, he is devotedly trying to support not the general public who has been suffering lots of hardships, but big businesses that have been saving up an enormous amount of internal reserves.

On the other hand, the prime minister remained silent on his long-cherished ambition to revise Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution that renounces war. It is different from his last policy address six years ago, in which Abe clearly showed his intentions by talking of “breaking away from the postwar regime”. It is obvious that he is aiming to establish a stable government through winning a comfortable majority in the Upper House election this coming summer. It is absolutely unforgivable for Abe to hide his true intent until securing a majority in the Diet to then rush toward his goal.

Which political party can stand up to the Abe administration as well as propose solutions to meet people’s wishes?

The Democratic Party of Japan, kicked out of power in the recent general election, suddenly began to call itself a “reform party”. The party, however, does not seem to regret turning itself into another “LDP” through a series of acts of treachery while it was in power against the public interest. It intends to go ahead with the so-called “integrated reform” plan consisting of a consumption tax hike and social security cuts, which was agreed on last year by the DPJ, LDP and Komei.

The Japan Restoration Party, making remarkable gains in the general election by holding the flag of the “third pole”, calls for preventing the LDP and Komei coalition from getting a majority in the upcoming Upper House election. When Abe asked the party for cooperation in passing a supplementary budget bill, however, JRP representative Hashimoto Toru agreed with Abe immediately. They also share the ambition to adversely revise the Constitution.

The Japanese Communist Party has argued that a mere change of government will not lead to a change of politics without breaking away from the bad habits of following the demands of the U.S. government and Japanese business circles. Making concrete proposals such as implementing policies that will provide a way out of the current deflationary recession through boosting people’s income, the JCP clearly demonstrates its confrontational stance against the Abe government by providing alternative proposals.