The Democratic Party of Japan decided Sunday to draw up a 300-day power transition plan and include it in campaign promises for the general election that must be held by autumn, party sources said.
The plan will be a road map of how the DPJ will transform the government if it wins power through the Lower House election, the sources said.
The promises will include measures to strengthen control over powerful bureaucrats, they said.
Former DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa, who stepped down earlier this month in the wake of the political fundraising scandal involving his top secretary, had been reluctant to make specific promises of what a DPJ-led government would do, saying instead that winning the general election should be the top priority for now.
His replacement in the party's top post, Yukio Hatoyama, will ask DPJ Secretary Katsuya Okada to compile detailed policy measures for the transition plan, the sources said.
They said the plan will include a pledge that the DPJ will no longer allow meetings of administrative vice ministers to decide the agenda for Cabinet meetings, a long-held government custom that has drawn criticism from the public.
The DPJ will also pledge to immediately launch a transition committee and decide who should be appointed to senior administrative positions. Politicians have rarely intervened in the process for choosing top bureaucrats.
