Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi won big gains for his Liberal Democratic Party in the Upper House election and has been re-elected uncontested to a new two-year term as LDP chief. But the tasks ahead of him are mounting, and one of the biggest is the decentralization of administrative power.
When Japan was trying to rebuild itself from the devastation of World War II, the central government pursued a policy of uniform development in all regions so it could guarantee the people a "civil minimum" quality of life.
Today, however, it seems necessary to give greater autonomy to local governments so that each can become more responsible for its own unique regional development and less dependent on the financial largess of the debt-laden central government.