The Cabinet's recent decision to accept a plan to double the ceiling on postal savings accounts to ¥20 million, as proposed by postal reform minister Shizuka Kamei, marks a drastic policy shift for the Democratic Party of Japan, which in the past argued the maximum should be halved from the current ¥10 million.
Experts say the reversal reflects the strategy of DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, who is trying to siphon votes from the Liberal Democratic Party by appealing to unions and associations affiliated with Japan Post, the nation's most powerful vote-gathering machines.
It remains to be seen whether the gamble will succeed. In fact, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's about-face over postal privatization could seriously hurt his party's reformist image ahead of the summer Upper House election, experts say.