Aso Taro continues to position himself as the LDP's savior in a rapidly approaching post-Fukuda period — in MTC's extended (and excellent) Fukuda-as-currency analogy, Mr. Aso is hoping that he is the best store of value in a chaotic environment.His latest move is to come out on behalf of the restoration of the temporary tax …
Tag: DPJ
The government serves up a weak adminstrative reform bill
On Thursday morning the LDP's headquarters for the promotion of administrative reform approved an administrative reform plan and passed it along to the cabinet. The cabinet approved it Friday morning and will submit it to the Diet later today.The plan still calls for a new cabinet personnel agency and restrictions on direct contact between politicians …
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How "sympathetic" should Japan be?
As expected, the governing coalition passed a three-year extension of the sympathy budget in the House of Representatives Wednesday. The House of Councillors now has one month to deliberate on it before it comes into law automatically.And deliberate it will. In the lower house, the DPJ already questioned the use of the sympathy budget to …
April fools?
Today, April 1, the Japanese people have received an April Fool's Day gift in the form of a potentially temporary tax cut on gasoline and automobile purchases. There is, reports the media, chaos at the car dealerships and chaos at the petrol pumps. There is uncertainty regarding current road construction projects. And in a press …
Cry havoc
Painted into a corner over the gasoline tax issue, Prime Minister Fukuda attempted to undercut Ozawa Ichiro in an interview on NHK Sunday, suggesting that the impetus for a grand coalition came from Mr. Ozawa. The facts of the negotiations surrounding an LDP-DPJ grand coalition — especially Watanabe Tsuneo's role in it — may never …
Accountability comes to the alliance?
Chalk up another first for the Japanese political system.For the first time since it was created in 1978, the "sympathy budget" by which Japan subsidizes the presence of US forces in Japan will not be passed before the end of the fiscal year, due to demands from the DPJ for more thorough deliberation. The bill, …
Fukuda resignation watch?
(Readers looking for my response to Fukuda Yasuo's resignation, see this post.)In a handful of days, Prime Minister Fukuda has gone from cool and collected, to angry, to shaken and desperate.On Friday, Mr. Fukuda called an emergency press conference to make one final plea to the DPJ to compromise on the gasoline tax, agreeing to …
Low posture to blame for Fukuda’s problems?
In Japanese postwar political history, the phrase "low posture" — 低姿勢, teishisei — is most associated with Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato (1960-1964). No mere slogan, the phrase signaled an end to the Kishi era, which ended in violence in the streets of Tokyo.The Ikeda era would be one of "tolerance and patience," of working with …
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Fukuda loses his cool
At a press conference Monday, Prime Minister Fukuda expressed his anger at the DPJ's rejection of the government's efforts to pass compromise legislation on taxation."[The DPJ] has an attitude of entirely not deliberating on the budget-related tax bill. What can the Diet do about this? Speaking honestly, this is incomprehensible."Mr. Fukuda and the LDP executive …
Trouble at the tip of the spear
Most of the concerns about the lack of progress in implementing the 2006 US-Japan realignment agreement have focused on political troubles in Japan, as Tokyo has struggled to get local governments involved in the relocation of US forces in Japan to accept the terms of the 2006 agreement. With the change of government in Iwakuni …
Tobias S. Harris 