Fukuda Cabinet is at an impasse at its 6th month

Japan Press Weekly

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

Fukuda Cabinet is at an impasse at its 6th month

Akahata editorial

Six months have passed since Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo’s cabinet was inaugurated.

It came into being after his predecessor, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, abandoned his cabinet when he was forced to decide whether to resign, following the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s crushing defeat in the House of Councilors election.

Six months later, however, the approval rating for the Fukuda Cabinet is 30 percent, the “critical line”. Its failure to nominate a viable candidate as the new Bank of Japan governor, led for the first time to the central bank being without a governor. On the question whether the higher gasoline tax rate should be abolished or not, the proposed legislation is still up in the air.

Policy matters

Prime Minister Fukuda’s inability to lead or act is not what the present problems are about. The policies being promoted by him are facing growing public criticism, and thus sharpening contradictions.

On the Bank of Japan issue, Fukuda came under fire when he nominated Tanami Koji, former vice finance minister, for governor, after his initial nomination of BOJ Deputy Governor Muto Toshiro was rejected by the House of Councilors.

The nomination of a BOJ governor needs to be approved by both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors, and support from all parties is important. Nevertheless, he has clung to someone who will not be supported by all parties. This is the cause of the present political stalemate.

The same is true of his handling of the gas tax issue in the Diet. The parliamentary debate on this issue has revealed how irresponsible it is for the government to rely on gas tax revenues to use 59 trillion yen to continue to construct costly highways over the next 10 years.

For all these problems, Fukuda has no intention to alter the plan. At the close of the end of the present fiscal year, he called for the plan to be amended. But even at that point, he was intent on the enactment of the bill by the end of March.

Opinion polls show that an overwhelming majority of the public is demanding that the use of gas tax revenues not be limited to road construction projects or that at least for the policy to be reviewed. Though Fukuda initially hinted at releasing the gas tax revenue to general purposes, the idea does not represent a ruling party plan. The fact that the Fukuda government is turning its back on the needs and demands of the people is the major stumbling block to finding a solution.

Although Fukuda broke with former Prime Minister Abe’s slogans like “for a beautiful country” and “break away from the postwar regime,” he has shown no sign to change the basic party stance of acting at the beck and call of the United States and Japanese business circles.

It is in this context that he extended the session of the Diet into January in order to discuss a bill to deploy Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force ships to the Indian Ocean to resume the refueling of foreign warships in support of the U.S. war. He is thus seeking to carry out the former cabinet’s “structural reform” policies aimed at benefiting major corporations at the cost of the living standard through cutbacks in welfare services and a consumption tax increase.

Even after the crushing defeat of the ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties in the 2007 House of Councilors election and the collapse of the Abe government, the Fukuda Cabinet is trying not to deviate from the policy of his predecessors. It is clear that this strategy is doomed to failure.

An opinion poll shows that 64 percent of people surveyed said that they do not give positive ratings to what the Fukuda Cabinet has being doing in its first six months (Yomiuri Shimbun, March 24). Clearly, the Fukuda Cabinet itself is responsible for the deadlock it has reached.

Changing basic policies is essential

In order to put an end to LDP politics and find an alternative, the only way is to fundamentally change its political stance, breaking away from its subservience to the United States and Japanese corporations.

However, Fukuda is stubbornly refusing to carry out the necessary change. What’s more, he is maneuvering to join with the Democratic Party in a “grand coalition” with the aim of getting the Constitution revised and the consumption tax rate increased. In this context, it is pinning a considerable hope on a major “political realignment”. All these moves are directed at making a reactionary breakthrough in order to survive the present political stalemate.

The need is now for us to call for a major political change and to keep watch on the political machinations by the LDP and the DPJ.

- Akahata, March 26, 2008