diet

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Postal services privatization bills bulldozed through lower house with narrow margin

The postal services privatization bills that will help Japanese and U.S. finance capital prey on the post office networks passed in the House of Representatives on July 6 by a margin of five votes, 233 in favor and 228 against. The bills were sent to the House of Councilors.

The Japanese Communist, Democratic, and Social Democratic parties, plus 37 LDP lawmakers voted against.

Vice ministers, parliamentary vice ministers, and LDP members of the lower house steering committee, who ignored the LDP leadership's call, voted against or abstained from the voting, and expressed their intention to resign from their posts.

Former Lower House Speaker Watanuki Tamisuke, along with some former cabinet ministers, leaders of some LDP factions, and ex-LDP policy affairs chief Kamei Shizuka, voted against the bills. In addition, 14 LDP lawmakers walked out of the plenary session or abstained from the voting.

In the discussion prior to the voting, Shiokawa Tetsuya spoke on behalf of the JCP. He stated that the postal services privatization bills must be withdrawn because, if privatized, they will destroy the active national networks of public services run by the post offices.

Such a dissolution of universal services at post offices will go against the world's current and is not what Japan needs today, he stated.

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro has defined the Postal Services Privatization bills as the centerpiece of his structural reform policy. However, passage of the bills through the lower house with such a narrow margin will affect the outcome of their passage through the House of Councilors and the forthcoming political situation. -Akahata, July 7, 2005