Japan Press Weekly

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2011 February 2 - 8 [POLITICS]

Your Party’s policy goes even further than LDP structural reform policy

The Your Party in its first convention on January 29 adopted a policy for the upcoming nationwide local elections which includes the “agenda in local governments” and the “agenda in agriculture.”

Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi in his opening speech criticized the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party for “relying on bureaucrats and seeking a bigger government” and described his party as a “party promoting policy innovation” which is entirely different from the two major parties. Your Party’s policy goes even further than the LDP’s Koizumi “structural reform” policy which responded to the demands of Japan’s business circles and the United States. A declaration the Your Party adopted in the convention states that it seeks a small government, encourages the private sector’s initiative, and prioritizes a free market mechanism. The Your Party’s position is to rehash the LDP’s failed policies instead of taking a new position.

Use of revenues from consumption tax to fund local governments

A pillar of the party’s “agenda in local governments” is to introduce a “doshu-sei” regional system to replace the current prefectural system, use revenues from the consumption tax to fund local governments and abolish the national government’s subsidy to them, and cut the payroll of local government employees by 20%.

Regarding the “doshu-sei” regional system, the Your Party, in its election promise for the 2009 Lower House general election and the 2010 Upper House election, stated, “Responsibilities of the central government should drastically be limited to foreign affairs, national security, finance, macro economy concerns, and a minimum level of social security.” The “doshu-sei” system is to transfer the national government’s responsibilities for labor policy and social welfare policy to “doshu” regional governments. The Japan Business Federation considers an introduction of the “doshu-sei” system as the ultimate in effective structural reform.

The Your Party claims that there are things that the government should do before increasing the consumption tax rate. However, what the party intends is to reduce public workers’ wages and cut the number of seats in the Diet and local assemblies.

Reduction of the number of Diet seats and local assembly seats prevents people’s voices from being reflected in policies of the national and local governments. The Your Party’s policy to halve the number of local assembly seats contradicts its promise to reactivate local governments.

Business corporations’ entry into farming sector

As Your Party Secretary General Eda Kenji proudly states, “We are the only political party proclaiming that Japan should enter into the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact (TPP),” the party in its “agenda in agriculture”, another pillar of its election policy, regards Japan’s participation in the TPP as a “golden opportunity”. It also calls for the abolition of regulations on business corporations’ entry into the farming sector and the promotion of large-scale and efficient farming through drastic consolidation of farm land.

Although the business circles have urged the government to implement a policy to allow corporations to fully enter into the agricultural sector, even the LDP government could not meet that demand.

If the government allows business corporations to take part in the farming sector, they will seek to acquire the best farm land and will abandon unproductive farm land. This will cause further deterioration of national land environmental quality and agricultural productivity.