No Change in Policies and Cabinet

The 221st session of the Diet was convoked on February 18th. This is a special session, set up after general election of the House of Representatives on February 8th. After Sanae Takaichi Cabinet resigned en masse at the beginning of the session, both chambers of the Diet reelected Takaichi. The second Takaichi Cabinet embarked on. Although Takaichi reappointed all the ministers in her cabinet, members of the Lower House have been drastically replaced by the snap election arranged by Takaichi.

The 220th ordinary session was convoked on January 23rd. Takaichi, then, dissolved the Lower House on the first day, asking “choose me or someone else” for prime minister on the day. The Upper House simultaneously finished the session. The 220th session lasted just one day. Article 54 of the Constitution of Japan demands the Lower House to have a general election within 30 days from the dissolution and to have a special session within 40 days from the election. The 221stspecial session was so convoked.

 

All the ministers of Takaichi Cabinet resigned at the beginning of the session, abiding by Article 70 of the Constitution, and both Houses had an election to elect a new prime minister. The Lower House reelected Takaichi for next prime minister with approval of lawmakers with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which occupied two-third majority in the House.

 

However, Takaichi was not elected the premier in the first vote of the Upper House in which her LDP and its coalition partner, Japan Innovation Party, did not have a simple majority. She was elected with relative majority against the leader of Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), Jun-ya Ogawa, with 125 to 50 in the run-off vote. It impressed a twisted situation between both chambers of the Diet. While Ogawa got 58 in the run-off, the leader of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), Shinichi Mizuoka, received 5 in the first vote. Although CRA asked the CDPJ and Komeito to vote for Ogawa, 5 CDPJ members in the Upper House must have refused it.

 

New prime minister ordinarily forms a new cabinet immediately after the election of the Diet. However, Takaichi had no idea to replace her ministers. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Shigeru Hori, argued in 1978 that dissolution of the house by prime minister had two conditions. One was to normalize relationship between the legislative and executive branches of the Diet in a confusion over an issue with great importance, and the second was proposal of a crucial issue that could not be anticipated in the latest election.

 

Takaichi’s decision of dissolution in January applies to none of those conditions for dissolution. It was genuinely her political maneuver to reinforce her administration in the Lower House, which was ruled out by Hori or other scholars on study of constitution. The CDPJ submitted a bill to prohibit discretional exercise of dissolution by a prime minister in June 2025, but it was dismissed because of the party’s minority.

 

Takaichi is going to promote her agenda that she had already been embracing before the election. It is unclear whether the dissolution of the Lower House was necessary as we see no change in policies and member of cabinet. It is highly unusual for a prime minister who persistently insist on popularity for her to handle the politics of Japan with super majority in one of the two chambers of the Diet.

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

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

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