Japan’s ruling bloc, key opposition DPP eye 3-way policy coordination

TOKYO: A three-way consultative framework was completed on Friday to coordinate policy between Japan’s ruling coalition and a smaller yet influential opposition party as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba explores a minority government after an election defeat.
The Komeito party, the junior coalition partner of Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party, agreed on Friday with the Democratic Party for the People to seek policy-by-policy coordination, as they share the goal of raising the income threshold for tax payments to begin. The LDP and the DPP have already decided to launch a similar consultative framework.
Deepening policy coordination over shared priorities is seen as a realistic approach to removing some of the political uncertainty created by the ruling bloc’s loss of majority control in the House of Representatives after Sunday’s election.
Ishiba, who doubles as LDP chief, has ruled out expanding the coalition immediately. The DPP, a small opposition party that saw its seats quadrupled in the election, has also voiced skepticism about joining the coalition with the ruling parties.
At the forefront of the DPP’s policy push is to increase people’s incomes at a time of rising prices, including by raising the current 1.03 million yen ($6,700) threshold for people to start paying taxes. Its chief, Yuichiro Tamaki, has signaled that taking up the issue will be a requisite for his party to cooperate with other parties.
The DPP has been in high demand since Sunday’s election, courted not just by the ruling bloc but also by the major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.
With no majority, the LDP and the CDPJ are scrambling to expand cross-party support and boost their collective presence.
The move comes also as Ishiba and CDPJ chief Yoshihiko Noda want to be elected the next prime minister in a parliamentary vote that must be held after a general election.
If no party leader can secure a majority in the initial vote in parliament, a runoff will be held between the top two candidates, who are expected to be Ishiba and Noda.
Senior executives of the CDPJ and the DPP agreed on Friday that their leaders will meet next week to explore coordination over political reforms and other priorities.
The agreement marked a turnaround from the DPP’s earlier rejection of a CDPJ offer to arrange a top-level meeting before a parliamentary vote to select a new prime minister, possibly on Nov 11.
The DPP had said it was not interested in a meeting if it was designed for the CDPJ to rally support for its leader Noda’s bid for the premiership. The DPP plans to vote for its leader Tamaki.
During Friday’s meeting, the CDPJ and the DPP secretaries general agreed on the need to continue discussions on key issues where their stances diverge, including constitutional reforms and the use of nuclear power.
The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, the umbrella group of labor unions that has backed the two main opposition parties, is calling for policy differences to be hashed out to form a joint front against the ruling camp.
After meeting with his CDPJ counterpart, DPP Secretary General Kazuya Shimba said his party will proceed with policy coordination by “keeping the same distance” with its counterparts.
CDPJ chief Noda, for his part, said he wants to discuss a range of issues with the DPP chief, not limited to political reforms in the wake of a slush funds scandal that hit the LDP late last year.
“I want to discuss a range of issues with him, including Diet reforms and the issue of the income barrier of 1.03 million yen,” Noda told a press conference.