Mr. Ozawa on the offensive
(From The Japan Times September 15 issue)

民主党・小沢代表の課題

    The DPJ leader, due to be automatically re-elected party chief Sept. 25 since no other candidates are expected, says his mission is to deprive the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito of their Upper House majority in next year's election. The task will be daunting, as he must hone his policy ideas, sell them to the public in a way that's easy to understand, maintain unity within his fragile party, and build strong election machines across the nation.

    Mr. Ozawa's platform consists of two major thematic planks: "Toward an ordinary nation through common-sense politics" (his basic ideas), and a "just society toward a nation living together" (his policy measures). His platform is apparently designed to counter Mr. Abe's platform, whose top priority is constitutional revision.

    With Mr. Koizumi's populist style in mind, Mr. Ozawa warns that under LDP rule the "extreme and biased politics of demagogy" has prevailed and is deepening Japan's crisis. He says his "common-sense politics" will create stability and trust. In contrast to Mr. Abe, who is mum on Japan's responsibility for World War II and criticizes the pacifist Preamble of the Constitution, Mr. Ozawa says Japan should endeavor to establish a peace for Japan and the world and conserve the Earth's natural environment — on the basis of "self-examination" of Japan's wars in the 1930s and '40s.

    Mr. Ozawa says Japan should exercise its individual or collective rights of military defense only when the nation faces an imminent and unprovoked attack — again a dig at Mr. Abe, who thinks collective defense rights should be exercised even when the Self-Defense Forces are deployed overseas.

    It is clear that Mr. Ozawa places top priority on establishing social safety nets as a rallying point against the future Abe administration. As an alternative to Mr. Koizumi's heavy inclination toward deregulation and Mr. Abe's proposal to give those who have failed in business a "second chance" to build a career, Mr. Ozawa offers safety nets that ensure social stability as the precondition for free competition. He declares that he will build "Japanese-style safety nets" in employment, social welfare and food security.

    To stabilize employment, he calls for a policy to push nonpermanent workers toward becoming permanent workers and for a basic rule to provide equal wages to permanent and nonpermanent workers alike if they do the same work for the same number of hours. He says the basis of laws governing employment practice should be to ensure stable jobs for as long as possible, and praises Japan's traditional lifelong employment system as an important safety net.

    His other proposals include: using all revenue from the consumption tax for social welfare spending, strengthening scholarships to enable more children from poor families to receive a higher education, attaining self-sufficiency in basic food production (now at 40 percent), and introducing a deficit-payment system (paying farmers the difference when their production costs exceed the market price), while pushing farm trade liberalization. Instead of subsidizing local governments, he favors transferring tax-revenue sources to them, starting compulsory education at age 5 and making senior high school compulsory.

    His ideas seem attractive to the public, but Mr. Ozawa needs to flesh them out. For example, he does not specify a consumption-tax rate for the future. He needs to show how the government can raise enough revenue to pay for swelling social welfare spending. The same can be said about the proposed deficit-payment system for farmers.

    He takes the position that Japan can actively participate in United Nations' peacekeeping activities without violating the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. But he does not mention his long-standing idea of creating an entity separate from the SDF to carry out U.N.-sponsored missions, apparently fearful of opposition from within his party. He should not be afraid of engaging members of his party in discussion to work out the details of his platform and make it persuasive.

The Japan Times Weekly: September 23, 2006
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    小沢氏は、小泉純一郎首相の政権の下で拡大したとされる国民の「貧富の格差」を是正する必要を強調し、自民党総裁当選が確実とされる安倍晋三官房長官の政策路線を批判している。

    小沢氏以外に立候補の動きはなく、氏は25日の代表選で無投票再選される見通しである。当面の目標として、小沢氏は来年の参院選で過半数の議席を自民党・公明党の与党連合から奪取することを目指している。 小沢氏の基本理念「常識の政治で普通の国へ」、基本政策「公正な社会---ともに生きる国へ」は、憲法改正を求める安倍氏の路線に対抗するものである。小沢氏はまた、小泉政権の支配の下で行われた扇動的偏向政治が日本の政治危機を悪化させたと警告した。

    安倍氏は、海外派遣の自衛隊にも集団的自衛権を認めるべきと主張するが、小沢氏は、国家に対して外国の攻撃が差し迫っているとき、挑発しないのに仕掛けられたときのみ、日本は個別・集団自衛権を行使すべきという立場だ。また「負け組」に再チャレンジの機会を与える、安倍氏の提案に対し、小沢氏は自由競争の前提条件として社会的安定を保証する雇用、福祉、食糧確保のための日本式セーフティネットを構想している。

    小沢氏は、日本は戦争を放棄する憲法9条に違反することなく、国連平和維持活動に参加できると主張するが、党内の反発を恐れてか、平和維持活動に参加するために自衛隊と別の組織を創設するという持論については触れていない。氏は、自身の基本理念を具体化するため、党員と積極的議論を行うことを恐れてはならない。