Koizumi Cabinet hypocrisy -- Akahata editorial, April 26 (gist)

A year has passed since Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro formed his cabinet screeching the slogans, "I will destroy the Liberal Democratic Party!" and "I will change Japan!"

Helped by people's rejection of corrupt LDP politics and favorable media reports, the Koizumi Administration enjoyed extremely high approval ratings.

But the bubble of the prime minister's popularity has burst. People have found that Prime Minister Koizumi, far from destroying the LDP, only thinks of maintaining it by all means. They came to find out his true colors when the secret state funds issue came to light.

It was disclosed that secret state funds have been used to serve the ruling parties' interest and politicians' private purposes, as proved by a cashbook of the funds which was revealed by the Japanese Communist Party.

The secret state funds issue is one of the root causes of political corruption and it is Prime Minister Koizumi's duty to investigate it. But he refuses to do so, on the grounds that the source of the cashbook is unknown and that he doesn't remember things from ten years ago.

It is the people's living conditions, the Japanese economy, and the Constitution that Prime Minister Koizumi is destroying. Under the name of "reform" he has supported major companies' mass restructuring and personnel cuts and pushed banks to dispose of all bad loans. This has resulted in the record high unemployment rate, the second largest number of corporate bankruptcies after WWII, and the severe slump in consumer spending.

Triggered by political scandals, popular support for the Koizumi Cabinet rapidly waned. They are angry at the prime minister's failures in the economic policy because they are the major cause of the prolonged economic recession and their worsening living conditions.

The prime minister intends to force through the contingency legislation which will mobilize the people for U.S. wars and he recently visited the Yasukuni Shrine even though his visit last year came under severe criticism both in and out of Japan.

The past year has shown that Prime Minister Koizumi is himself the hard-liner who rejects any change in the LDP politics.

The longer he continues to follow the U.S. and carry out anti-people policies, the clearer his hawkish nature will become which is completely alien from a reformist, and the wider the gap between his interests and the people's wishes will become. (end)