The First Half of Diet Session Finished

The annual budget of Fumio Kishida administration for FY 2024 was approved by the Diet. As a business as usual, Prime Minister Kishida had a press conference to express his thought on the achievement. He insisted on his engagement with economic policy, embracing determination to get rid of decades-long deflation. Having suffered from prolonged scandal over the slush fund by factions of Liberal Democratic Party, Kishida will face difficulty to promote his policies in the second half of ordinary session of the Diet. 

The House of Councillors approved FY 2024 budget bill amounting ¥112 trillion, the second largest in the history, with support of LDP and Komeito. The opposition parties voted against the bill. It is considered that whether voting for or against a budget bill is one of the most important decisions, along with voting on non-confidence resolution against the prime minister, which distinguishes the leading party from the opposition. The budget will be spent to the policies from April.

 

In the press conference after the plenary session of the Upper House, Kishida stressed his determination to take the chance to get rid of deflation. “I’m going to achieve income hike beyond price hike this year, and wage hike beyond price hike next year,” said Kishida. He raised adding cost increases on price, support for wage increase, measures on labor shortage and support for workers as the policies necessary for empowering enterprises.

 

However, Kishida is suffering from low approval rate caused by his weak leadership to restore confidence to LDP from a quagmire of the slush fund scandal. Although he interviewed to the leaders of former Abe faction, who were involved in the decision of the faction to continue the kickbacks of ticket sales of fundraising parties to the faction members, no viable evidence could he found from those Abe leaders.

 

In the discussion of the Upper House, Kishida indicated that the party may interview to former prime minister, Yoshiro Mori, who are regarded as one of the political leaders establishing the kickback system about two decades ago. Kishida is still not able to put a period on the scandal, but expanding it to former party leaders.

 

Kishida has announced in the Diet discussion that he would not dissolve the House of Representatives before LDP punishes the lawmakers who were involved in the slush fund scandal. Asked about when he would have a snap election in the press conference, Kishida answered that he did not think about it at all for now. It had been said in Nagatacho, the center of politics in Japan, that the political leaders can lie about snap election and interest rate of Bank of Japan.

 

For the time being, the result of three by-elections set at the end of April will affect the fortune of Kishida administration this year. LDP has not decided whether it will raise candidates in two out of three districts. A miserable result will cause movement in LDP to replace Kishida before next general election of House of Representatives.