Confusing political games

要約

A confused state of affairs developed in the Diet this week. On the night of Aug. 7, the Liberal Democratic Party decided to submit a no-confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet to the Lower House and a censure motion against Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to the Upper House, despite the fact that the LPD, the Democratic Party of Japan headed by Mr. Noda and Komeito had cooperated to pass a bill to raise the consumption tax through the Lower House.

But Aug. 8, Mr. Noda, LDP chief Sadakazu Tanigaki and Komeito chief Natsuo Yamaguchi held a meeting, and agreed to pass the consumption tax raise bill as soon as possible. That means that the LDP has given up on the idea of submitting a no-confidence motion.

The fact that at one time the LDP was poised to submit a no-confidence motion has underlined the fact that the cooperative ties among the DPJ, the LDP and Komeito are a shaky, temporary tieup to enact the bill, which will eventually double the consumption tax rate from 5 percent to 10 percent from October 2015.

While Mr. Noda and Mr. Tanigaki, both former finance ministers, are eager to raise the consumption tax rate, Mr. Tanigaki has another goal — to get back power from the DPJ by winning the next Lower House election. That’s why, at one point, the LDP insisted that unless Mr. Noda promised to dissolve the Lower House, it would not take part in the voting for the consumption tax raise bill in the Upper House.
In their meeting Aug. 8, Mr. Noda, Mr. Tanigaki and Mr. Yamaguchi agreed to appeal to people’s conscience — that is, to hold a Lower House election — in the near future.

Mr. Noda, who has the power to dissolve the Lower House, must realize that if he postpones the dissolution until after the Diet has enacted the consumption tax raise bill, he will only deepen people’s distrust of politics.

He also must realize that because the consumption tax raise was not mentioned at all in the DPJ’s manifesto for the 2009 Lower House election, whose results brought the party to power, he has an obligation to dissolve the chamber at an early date. The latest development also showed that partisan interests are the LDP’s primary concern.

日本語の抄訳はウィークリ8月18日号のP18に掲載されています。