Seat Reduction within One Year

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Japan Innovation Party (JIP) agreed on submitting a bill to the Diet to reducing seats of the House of Representatives within a year on December 1st. The bill would determine that the House reduces its seat by 10 percent and it would cut 25 seats in single-seat districts and 20 seats in proportional district, even if all the parties fail in concluding on the reduction within a year. The opposition parties are not supportive for the plan so far. 

In the process of forming coalition, JIP raised “backup capital initiative” and social security reform as the conditions absolutely needed on October 16th. Then, JIP abruptly added seat reduction in the Diet as the third “absolute condition” on October 17th. The party had been demanding abolition of donation from companies and organizations to the LDP, it changed its focus in political reform from abolition of the donations to Diet seat reduction. The LDP has fundamentally been negative on abolition of the donation on which the party heavily relied.

 

In the agreement for coalition, the LDP promised JIP to submit a bill for reducing 10 percent of seats in the House of Representatives to 2025 extraordinary session of the Diet and take action for enacting the bill. Although the JIP put pressure on the LDP to push the seat-reduction bill, indicating it could leave the coalition in case the promise would not be implemented, two parties agreed that the reduction would not be made immediately, but within a year.

 

As JIP insisted on promoting seat reduction, believing that it would justify forming a coalition with the LDP to which JIP had been criticizing as an opposition party, the LDP sought a broad consensus including other opposition parties. While JIP hoped to reduce 10 percent of seats in proportional district in the Lower House, the LDP has been considering concern of opposition parties that reduction in proportional district would have greater damage on small parties than major ones.

 

The discussion by the LDP and JIP was settled at reduction of 25 seats in single-seat districts and 20 seats in proportional district in the Loser House, if leading parties and opposition parties would not conclude on the seat reduction within a year. The parties are going to conclude their discussion in a committee on election system reform by next spring.

 

The opposition parties are skeptical on why they need to reduce the seats now. Some parties think that regulation on political donation must be more urgent issue than reducing seats in the Diet. Others fundamentally oppose to seat reduction itself. They still do not understand why the reduction will be made by 10 percent and why it is needed within a year. JIP has never answered those questions so far. The chairperson of special committee for election reform, in which the seat-reduction bill will be discussed, is from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. The procedure of the bill is still not guaranteed to be going well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LDP Kickoffs Presidential Election

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)   kicked off  its presidential election campaign on September 22 and five lawmakers officially submitted their candidacy to the party. Having lost majority in both Houses of the Diet under the leadership of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the presidential election should be about how to regain power through reform of the party. Nevertheless, the candidates do not talk much about the reform, rather focusing on economic policies for the people or maneuvers to attract the opposition parties.   Those five candidates are former Minister on Economic Security Takayuki Kobayashi, former LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Minister on Economic Security Sanae Takaichi and Miniser of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi.   Kobayashi insists on temporary income tax cut with a fixed rate, which return is bigger for high-income taxpayers than them with low-income. Identifying h...
Read more

BOJ Begins to Sell ETF

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to keep its short-term rate at 0.5 percent in its Monetary Policy Meeting on September 19 th . While it had been expected that the bank would not change the policy rate in the meeting, the meeting unanimously agreed on beginning to sell exchange-traded funds (ETF). Although the policy reflected the bank’s determination for normalizing its monetary policy, the Governor of JOB, Kazuo Ueda, predicted that it would take a hundred years to release all the ETF it possesses. While the BOJ started buying ETF, a financial product which is equivalent to investment trust, in 2010, the bank abruptly increased its quantity of purchase in 2013, under the leadership of then governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, who exchanged an accord with Shinzo Abe administration to cooperate to get rid of deflation and to achieve stable economic growth. The amount of ETF bought by the BOJ has reached 37 trillion yen.   Purchase of ETF by a central bank has been recognized as a prohibited m...
Read more

Contaminated Soil to Prime Minister’s Residence

Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet discussed how the radioactively contaminated soil in Fukushima prefecture would be treated and decided some of it should be used in Prime Minister’s Official Residence in Tokyo. Although the soil needs to be removed from Fukushima with legal requirement, the government of Japan has not found anywhere it should go. Ishiba administration hopes that the decision will pave the way for any local community to accept the soil.   Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant emitted a huge amount of radiation into the air, which contaminated the land surface around the site, in the severe accident in East Japan Great Earthquake in 2011. The contaminated soil in Fukushima prefecture was stocked in the intermediate stockyard built in the towns of Futaba and Okuma, where the power plant is located. The government promised the people in Fukushima to remove the soil out of Fukushima prefecture within thirty years, when it decided to build the stockyard in 2014.   The total a...
Read more