JAPAN: Japan kicks off campaign for Upper House of Parliament elections

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other politicians kick off election campaigns for the upper house of Parliament elections due at the end of the month. Campaigning began on Thursday (July 12) for the Japanese parliament upper house election on July 29 that could cost Prime Minister Shinzo Abe his job and usher in a period of policy stagnation if his ruling bloc suffers big loses. Abe's ruling coalition's chances of keeping its upper house majority have dimmed because of government mishandling of pension records and a series of scandals and gaffes that forced three ministers from his cabinet, two by resigning and one by suicide. "What is a responsible party ? What is a ruling party ? We, as a responsible ruling party, have never promised what we can not implement. We will definitely carry out things we have pledged during our campaign," Abe said at a pre-election debate among party leaders on Wednesday (July 11). The ruling coalition of Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito need to win a total of 64 seats to keep their majority in the upper house, where half of the 242 seats come up for grabs. The New Komeito is aiming for 13 seats. The Democrats are touting the upper house poll as a step towards taking power. "A huge political battle has begun that will become the first step towards greatly altering our country's politics," the party said in a statement on Thursday. A loss by the ruling camp would not automatically require Abe to step down, since the lower house picks the prime minister. Abe, at 52 Japan's youngest prime minister since World War Two, won kudos early on for improving chilly ties with China. But he has since seen his public support ratings slashed to some 30 percent, about half the level when he took office last September. A staunch ally of the United States, Abe has pledged to rewrite the pacifist constitution and boost Japan's global security profile -- a change Washington would welcome. He also wants to lead the country out of a "post-World War Two regime" that conservatives argue overemphasised Japan's wartime wrongdoing and stressed individualism at the expense of traditional values such as public service and patriotism. But he has had little scope to pitch that agenda amid the furore over pensions, public concern over political corruption and doubts about his leadership. "I think it's time for a regime change. The current government doesn't appeal to me," said Hiromi Isomura, a 50-year-old housewife. Hiroe Funabashi, a 45-year-old Tokyo resident, was also sceptical about Abe's leadership. "I cannot support Abe's party as it is right now. There are just too many things, like the corrupt pension program that is being mishandled by bureaucrats which no one is taking the responsibility of conveying to the people what is happening," she said. One cabinet minister resigned in December over a political spending scandal, the health minister barely kept his post after referring to women as "birth-giving machines", and the scandal-tainted farm minister hanged himself in May. Then last week the defence minister stepped down over remarks that appeared to condone the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and now Agriculture Minister Norihiko Akagi is under fire over reports that he falsely booked millions of yen in spending for political offices If the ruling coalition wins at least 55 seats, including 45 for the LDP, analysts say the soft-spoken, stylish Abe can probably keep his job and cobble together a majority by wooing independents, disaffected Democrats or lawmakers from a small conservative party, the People's New Party. But a big defeat would make it hard to enact laws and would put pressure on Abe to resign, as then prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto did after losing a 1998 upper house poll. That could return Japan to the short-lived governments seen in the 1990s and siphon lawmakers' energy from policy-making to political jockeying, analysts say. The New Komeito said a big loss for the ruling camp could even trigger a snap election for the lower house, although no general election need be held until 2009, and spark a rejigging of political allegiances among Democrats and the LDP. END

ITN Source | July 12, 2007

Tags:. .trigger. .referring. .defence. .agenda. .coalitions