Discretion is the better part of valor, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi might say.

But opposition parties are fuming over the leader's repeated absence from the weekly "question time" debate sessions, which had been widely touted as a visible form of Diet reform.

Obuchi skipped Wednesday's scheduled debate with opposition leaders, saying that he will have an opportunity to speak at the Upper House Budget Committee on Friday, when it is expected to vote on the fiscal 2000 budget.

Referring to a January agreement with the Democratic Party of Japan, the ruling coalition maintains that the prime minister need not attend the one-one-one debates on weeks when he appears at a plenary or committee session of the Diet.

But the opposition bloc sees Obuchi's actions as an attempt to evade the nationally televised debate sessions, especially after he was scorched last week, being booed for commenting that two police officials punished for a recent Niigata police scandal "were, to put it in vulgar words, just plain unlucky."

DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama told a press conference Wednesday: "It seems to me that it's the Liberal Democratic Party's tactic to minimize the prime minister's (opportunity to) answer (questions). Where else in the world can you find a country where the prime minister benefits by not appearing before the public?"

While Kazuo Shii, chief of the Japanese Communist Party's secretariat, observed that "the public would think that the prime minister is either not capable of withstanding the 40-minute debate or just lacks confidence in himself," Social Democratic Party leader Takako Doi suggested the session be better termed as "cushion time" instead of question time.

Since the weekly debate session was launched in January in an attempt to invigorate Diet discussions, Obuchi has attended the session only twice, leading the opposition camp to call for a review of the system.