The Democratic Party of Japan won't be letting its two minor coalition partners join the National Strategy Bureau, which the DPJ plans to create as a policymaking body for laying out budgets and basic measures, party sources said Sunday.
The two minor parties had expressed their desire to participate in the strategy bureau during discussions on forming the coalition government, so they are expected to react negatively to the DPJ's plan to shut them out.
During a TV program Sunday in which former DPJ policy chief Takeaki Matsumoto said his party has no plans to let the coalition partners in the strategy bureau because it won't be a venue for interparty adjustment of policies, lawmakers from the two minor parties repeatedly called on the DPJ to allow them to participate.
The DPJ and its coalition partners, the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), instead will set up a committee of Cabinet ministers consisting of leader-level lawmakers to coordinate their parties' policies, the DPJ sources said.
Sessions of the committee on basic policies will be attended by the DPJ's Naoto Kan, who is to be appointed deputy prime minister and state strategy minister, SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima and Kokumin Shinto leader Shizuka Kamei, who will also join the coalition Cabinet.