Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (left) and main opposition Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama during their debate session in Tokyo
Japan’s opposition Democratic Party may win two-thirds of the seats in parliament’s lower house in Sunday’s election, a newspaper said today, a landslide win that would make it easier to push through laws.
Source:Reuters
- An opposition victory would end more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and break a policy deadlock caused by a divided parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and can delay bills.
- Yukio Hatoyama’s Democrats have promised to focus spending on households, cut waste and wrest control of policy from the hands of bureaucrats. But their pledge to keep the sales tax at its current 5 per cent for the next four years has raised concerns about further inflating Japan’s already huge public debt.
- Previous surveys have already shown the Democrats are on track for a runaway win over Prime Minister Taro Aso’s LDP, which has ruled the country for all but 10 months since its founding 1955, but the Asahi newspaper said that an even bigger victory was within sight.
- A huge win would mean the Democrats would have to pay less attention to their small allies on the left and the right, making policy formation easier. A two-thirds majority in the lower house would also allow the Democrats to enact bills rejected by the upper house.
- With their allies, they currently control the upper house but face an election for that chamber next year.
- Analysts have cautioned that voter anger at the LDP is more due to scandals, policy flip-flops and a perceived inability to solve the deep problems of Japan’s fast-ageing society rather than enthusiasm for the decade-old Democrats.
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