LDP chief grills Noda in Diet Q&A session
TOKYO —
The opposition grilled Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda during a question-and-answer session in the Diet on Wednesday. Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki called on Noda to dissolve the House of Representatives and hold an election, saying the DPJ-led government had lost its legitimacy. Tanigaki also urged Noda to scrap the DPJ’s election manifesto.
According to an NHK report, Tanigaki said that Noda has to ask for a public mandate on issues such as the child allowance program and raising the consumption tax. Noda replied that Japan is facing too many challenges, such as reconstruction of the Tohoku area, the nuclear crisis, a strong yen and a burgeoning public debt, and that now is not the time to call a snap election.
Tanigaki also criticized Noda for appointing Yoshio Hachiro as industry and trade minister. Hachiro was forced to resign after only eight days in the job for referring to the area around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant as “shi no machi” or a “town of death.”
Tanigaki said Hachiro was the latest in a long line of senior DPJ officials and minister who have had to resign over verbal gaffes and said Noda has to take responsibility for Hachiro’s remarks.
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1
sillygirl
it is inconceivable that this dickering is going on at times like these. what the hell is wrong with those people?????the triple disasters are now over 6 months ago. get on the stick.
2
vctokyo
this loser LDP said that Kan had to leave before considering any grand coalition, now that he got rid of Kan he's still going on about dissolving the house. When will these politicians grow up and start helping the people who voted them in.
4
Speed
Tanigaki is the scourge and absolute predictable reactionary in the opposition LDP. He does nothing but make condemnations, calls for resignations, and snap elections.
I think the DPJ should attack him and spotlight Tanigaki's constant obstructionist stance to the media/people to make him clam up.
Like the posters above wrote, there are too many urgent things to take care of than to play this topple the Prime Minister game.
2
zichi
At this time, the worse and most critical since WWII, all politicians and their parties should be trying to work together, to deal with the reconstruction following the triple mega disasters. The big nuke disaster. The value of the yen. Rising debt.
The LDP don't even understand they are 100% responsible for the nuke disaster.
0
JapanGal
And the beat goes on.....
0
JapanGal
Tanigaki wears a leisure suit.
1
warnerbro
The first question and only question Tanigaki and anybody in his party has the right to ask is "Why did you allow my grossly incompetent and moreover foolish political party to create a nuclear power system in the most dangerous land in the world to do so?"
1
zichi
The politicians of the LDP should be holding down their heads in deep shame, and owe the nation a sincere apology. But it will never happen. They seem unable to feel the pain of the nation which is struggling in so many ways. They have nothing constructive to offer, to resolve the many problems, they are mainly responsible for creating.
-1
Hikozaemon
The article is incomplete - he basically pointed out that Kan and Noda both agreed to the 3 party agreement with Komeito and LDP, which constitutes a breach of the promises they made in their election manifesto.
He basically said that by agreeing to the LDP's terms and withdrawing its manifesto promises, the DPJ has lost the mandate it was elected under, and should call a new election now to win a new mandate for its revised (broken) policies.
And he is right - Kan betrayed DPJ voters, and the DPJ under Noda is just an extension of the LDP - Tanigaki is gleefully rubbing this in. Tanigaki basically has Noda and the DPJ over a pommel horse like the guy in Pulp Fiction, and he is turning the country music up high...
None of this would have happened if Ozawa had been in a position to stop Kan screwing things up by losing the upper house, trashing the DPJ manifesto and selling out to the LDP like he did.
Nice to see Ozawa's guy - the party secretary, vainly try to remind Noda in a question asking him to reassert that he believes in the principle of political control of beaurocracy, which Noda basically flubbed on saying politicians need to respect the expertise of Japan's bureaucrats. You know, the ones who recommended and ran Japan's nuclear plants assuring everyone it was all okay.
Tanigaki is right, and probably loving his job right now.
-2
Hikozaemon
Zichi - the LDP is not responsible for Japan's nuclear disaster. Policy in Japan is made by the beaurocracy - those folks in Kasumigaseki. All that LDP did was rubber stamp their policies. And that is all Noda is doing today.
Politics has nothing to do with it.
-1
plasticmonkey
Unfortunately, the Japanese public's expectation for an opposition party is to simply oppose everything the ruling party does. Like the audience in a vaudeville show that's supposed to boo whenever the villain comes on stage. Many Japanese do not admire Tanigaki for doing this, but neither do they see it as unusual. Tanigaki and the LDP are simply playing their part in the script of Japanese politics.
And so nothing ever really changes and the masses remain, as ever, apathetic and disempowered.
1
zichi
Hikozaemon, you have me rolling on the floor with laughter, thank you for that!
For more than 50 years the LDP ruled the country and I do believe the PM is the head of state. The LDP are responsible for writing the countries nuke energy policy, setting the safety standards, electing the various atomic agencies to oversee policy and safety. Allowing for the over construction of nuke power plants, with another 12 in the immediate pipeline, including another 2 at Fukushima, before they lost the election. Giving power companies massive grants and tax breaks to build nuke power plants.
But probably you are right, that politics has nothing to do with it, more about power companies generating more profit than electricity and making large donations to their bed fellows, the LDP, which was riddled with corruption during those 50+ years.
-2
Hikozaemon
Zichi - take a seat. Sorry to tell you the tooth fairy ain't real, but I'd wager that not a single energy related policy has ever been drafted by the LDP. They may have sat in on meetings, and certainly it was their job to rubber stamp laws.
Policy in Japan is not a function of parliament. The LDP outsources all policy making to what was MITI at the time, and the other agencies that oversaw construction and maintenance of the plants.
The LDP never wrote any energy policy, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with safety standards. Politicians do NOT choose bureaucrats for posts - they rubber stamp the appointments that are decided internally.
Policy, particularly in nuclear energy has never been politically controlled in Japan. That is why this happened - they have been set up and run without any kind of democratic oversight or responsibility.
It isn't possible to understand anything about Japanese politics without understanding how Japan is governed and policy is made first. Politics in Japan is completely separate to policy. Ozawa, Hatoyama and Kan tried for two years to change that, but they all failed fighting amongst themselves, and now we are back to form with Noda doing things the way things have always been done. DPJ/LDP is irrelevant - at the moment, they are the same thing, which is a party which gives up governance of Japan to faceless unaccountable bureaucrats.
2
zichi
BTW the tooth fairy is true. I received money everytime I lost a tooth.
While it's true, there's a civil servant behind every politician they also have the power not to rubber stamp any policy they don't agree with.
-1
Hikozaemon
Zichi, take a look at the long history of politicians having "disagreements" with their civil servants. Makiko Tanaka is my favorite example, but basically it works out very simply. The politician becomes subject to a sudden scandal and media frenzy which ends in their prompt resignation and/or arrest.
Press always sides with the civil service, because they know the lifespan of most political appointments is that of a fruitfly. Politicians either play ball, get a few public works projects in their constituencies with some nice kickbacks and funding for their reelection, or fight, and end up the center of a storm.
Hence, very few politicians ever contradict or fight against the civil service "proposals" for policy, which should be taken as offers that cannot really be refused.
Of course, civil service will go along with some policy directions and initiatives of a new cabinet - but it is all back scratching. Policy details have always been crafted and proposed by the civil service. The role of politicians is to help their ministries compete for budget allocation, and to resign when anyone in the ministry with a lifetime job screws up. THAT is why Japan has such a crappy system of nuclear power safety.
The LDP is guilty of being a pillar that protected that system, just as the DPJ is under the current cabinet. But none of this ever had anything to do with politics.
0
smithinjapan
"Tanigaki said Hachiro was the latest in a long line of senior DPJ officials and minister who have had to resign over verbal gaffes and said Noda has to take responsibility for Hachiro’s remarks."
I've no doubt this has been said, but the list of people who have made gaffes or irresponsible remarks in or under LDP leadership goes above and beyond that made by the LDP. Hell, Aso alone in his short stint as PM made more gaffes than all of the DPJ so far combined.
I know it's not really possible, but I wish Noda would stick it to him: pointing out that Tanigaki refused to cooperate on reconstruction funds and issues until Kan stepped down, and that he's merely interested in power in a time when the people in the north have no power even over where they sleep or what little they eat.
1
edojin
Tanigaki must have amnesia. He said: "Hachiro was the latest in a long line of senior DPJ officials and ministers who have had to resign over verbal gaffes and said Noda has to take responsibility for Hachiro’s remarks." Good grief ... how many LDP officials and ministers had to resign because of verbal gaffes and other horrible reasons? Too many. The Emperor was always kept busy accepting new LDP ministers who replaced those who were forced out. There were some LDP ministers who brazenly swept their misdoings under the carpet and kept on going as if they were Gods or something. And Tanigaki wants the LDP to return to power? All they want is our (tax, social security, pension) money so that they can return to their once-lavish lifestyles. Hang tough, Noda-san ...
2
GW
Hiko,
while I enjoy yr insights, pls the LDP & beaurocrates have been in the same bed for decades!
THEY BOTH are equally responsible for the S&%T thats piled up in Japan, its bloody time someone in the current govt TOOK THESE A-HOLES to task on it, simple as that, really IT IS.
2
hatsoff
My only consolation regarding this sorry conduct is that most of the public are fed up with Tanigaki too for constantly calling for an election (I was chatting about politics with one of my Japanese friends yesterday). He told me the public thinks Tanigaki is just full of hot air because he never suggests any alternative. I know this was just bar talk and generalizations, but it's some consolation for me anyway.
2
browny1
GW - I agree.
There is no way known LDP can cry - But we were just pawns at the mercy of bureaucrats!
Their abiding incestuous relationship with the other powers to be created the frankenstein system.
Trying to diminish their responsibility as leaders of a nation don't cut it at all.
0
zichi
The current political baby is from 50+ years of LDP government in bed with the civil service which did their biding.
0
presto345
Huh?
0
GW
huh?
you know what they meant haha
1
gyouza
That is actually the root of the problem Hikozaemon. They had the power, were in power, and left it to a corrupt group of individuals - allowing the status quo makes them guilty. At least the DPJ started to change things (Ren Ho and Edano). Closing departments en-masse where they showed they had no value whatsoever. The change started, and it would have gone deeper had we not experienced the worst natural disaster in Japan in living memory. How on earth can Tanigaki say that this doesn't change anything, and that DPJ has lost the mandate? Did they promise no earthquakes and no tsunami's in their manifesto?
The real losers are the Japanese public, but conversely, if they started to vote for real policies instead of voting for long held alliegencies then perhaps the politcal landscape would move from the current deadlock.
1
presto345
The more I hear and see him blowing out this hot air, the more I detest this man. This same man who likes to point out what the 'kokumin no minasama' need, want, while at the same time totally disregarding his and his party's responsibility to make that happen. And also totally disregarding the fact, like many have already pointed out, that it is the LDP who were in power for more than half a century and created the Japan the DPJ inherited. Stating that it is the bureaucrats who 'did it' is a real dumb remark. And by the way, Tanigaki is not only full of hot air, he is also full of himself and full of . . .
1
Hikozaemon
GW - the LDP, the bureaucrats, the keidanren, and the controlled media have all been in bed together for 60 years. The role of the LDP in that alliance was to shield the policy making administrative arm of government from accountability.
The LDP is guilty of letting bureaucrats set up a flawed system of nuclear monitoring and safety, but so is the Keidanren whose members also have profited enormously from the construction and maintenance work on the plants for TEPCO and the government, as well as the media that coopearted with everyone and helped to keep critics silent.
The LDP's role in the last half century was to take the fall while in power for any screw ups from the Japanese beaurocracy in exchange for favors in return. Blaming them is pointless. Their whole purpose for existing is to accept blame for screw ups.
Kan is just as guilty of being less interested in structural reform than starting factional fights with Ozawa, a guy who did keep up the good fight all through Hatoyama's cabinet of dragging beaurocrats into the sunlight in public gymnasiums and forcing them to disclose their hidden discretionary budgets, which are a major part of the way these corrupt systems are sustained.
Kan did break from the LDP tradition refusing to take the fall for nuclear safety agency complicity in the accident, publicly and openly blaming them for incompetence after the fact, but he did nowhere near enough to address these problems after coming to power.
People should wake up and blame the system of government that set this whole thing up, and demand accountability from the beaurocrats that drafted and implemented Japan's flawed nuclear policy, and were criminally negligent in properly monitoring and holding the companies left to run the plants accountable. With Ozawa expelled due to a political prosecution, and Kan exiled from government, happily handing over to another kasumigaseki servant to take over (as Kan himself was, at least with regards to the Finance Ministry), all hope of meaningful steps to fix these problems for now are gone. The civil servants are now firmly in charge of the DPJ, just as they will be of the LDP next year. And that is what is most disappointing about this capitulation by Noda's cabinet, and what Tanigaki is revelling in. The DPJ has sold out just like the LDP did, and is now just as responsible as the LDP for being a rubber stamp for bad policy.
0
Hikozaemon
Gyouza - Kan started undoing the manifesto long before the quake, and he would have been impeached within March had the quake not saved him.
As for Edano, I liked him, but after being anti-nuclear bureau bashing Kan's front man for so long, Noda makes him METI minister and look at how quickly he changed his tune. He's all "fire-'em up" again now, just being a mouthpiece for the ministry. It's very disappointing to see.
People here swallow the media propaganda on Ozawa, but that first year, with Ren Ho and friends in those gymnasiums dragging those people into the sunlight and holding them accountable for spending for the first time in history was a spectacular kick in the balls and assertion of political authority over administration in Japan like has never been done in history. Of course, Ozawa's powerless now, but I agree, that time period represented a glimmer of hope for meaningful structural reform. If only Hatoyama wasn't so bone-headedly idealistic about the US-Japan security alliance... That was the opening needed to end the show.
Still, it was a nice 12 months of hope for meaningful change in Japan.
1
zichi
I was never impressed by Japanese politicians even before I came to live here, and even less during the 17 years I have been here.
A two term prime minister is beginning to mean two school terms. The political system is well and truly busted. There was some hope when the the DPJ were elected but that rapidly faded with the leadership struggles and the triple mega disasters.
The main stream media has only been an extension of the government, reprinting all those news hand outs. I was shocked when I discovered that all government buildings have a press room? No questions asked during interviews.
Maybe at the next general election not a single person should cast a vote!
0
gyouza
I think that was Hatoyama, and not sure he can make up his mind yet. Actually, that more than anything upset me about DPJ winning. Hatoyama was full of venom, hatred, and snarled constantly at the LDP whe he was in opposition. Then he became PM and suddenly lost all impetus and really failed to be anything like people thought he might of been. Interresting parallel today is that Tanigaki is EXACTLY like Hatoyama was, but thankfully Noda is showing some spirit.
Join me in wishing him well, because the Japanese people need that right now, and not just another seat change exercise. The parties are so close idealistically but they (both sides) get so hung up on details because they want to be seen to be powerful. Victims need action, not politics, and Tanigaki could probably do himself a political favour by being a positive force and HELPING steer Japan into recovery. Doesn't even need to swallow pride, just needs to forget the bashing and look North to see how he (and everyone) can help the victims.
1
Hikozaemon
Hey Gyouza - Hatoyama has frankly, always been a bit of a pussy. He was never so much snarling with the LDP when in opposition (Kan was good at bashing them, however), but kind of uppity passive-aggressive.
The childraising benefits, reduction of schooling costs, making highways free, demanding cuts in administrative spending, pretty much each bullet on the manifesto stayed intact under Hatoyama's government, only because the government drew from all factions, and the manifesto was really the only thing that held all sides of the DPJ together.
When Kan shut out the former liberal party factions of Ozawa and Hatoyama from his cabinet, he also took to undoing their parts of the DPJ manifesto. It was petty stupid internal politics, that undermined the more important need for the DPJ to restructure how government operates in Japan.
Hatoyama's downfall was going off the reservation and trying too idealistic and too hard to be liked over the Futenma issue. It was painful to watch, and showed why the guy really couldn't be left alone to speak his mind freely - although it was astounding to me that a guy with a political pedigree like his could so fundamentally misjudge the US/Japanese security relationship.
The LDP is revelling in its position, with some justification. The DPJ indeed made the LDP's life hell when it took over the upper house and held up the budget for months - they drove Fukuda to resign out of obstruction and frustration. So now that the tables are reversed, there is no question that there is an element of payback involved. Also, the LDP is aware that the more difficult they make it for the DPJ, and the more they humiliate them in parliament, as they will continue to do, the more Japanese voters will distance themselves from them.
The big difference between opposition doing this in the old days, and the LDP doing this now, is that they know that the endgame will be their return to power. They are basically like a football team that has put 50 points on the opposition and is gleefully rubbing it in as the clock winds down. It's kind of understandable - I'll bet the LDP is just starting to realize how much more fun opposition is than actually being in power.
The only consolation is that tables will turn and this time next year, LDP will be back in power, only unfortunately with a majority in each house, so no one will really be able to do anything to hold them back until a new viable opposition party forms.
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