Opposition CDP submits no-confidence motions ahead of election

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the main opposition party, submitted two no-confidence motions on Wednesday: one against Lower House speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda over allegations of sexual harassment and a second against Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration as a protest against his economic policies, which they say have failed to curb price hikes that are hurting consumers.

Opposition parties regularly submit no-confidence motions against the administration at the end of a regular parliamentary session — the current session is set to end on June 15 — but it is rare for one to be submitted against a Lower House speaker.

The Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party are expected to support the motions. It was unclear whether they would also be backed by the other opposition parties.

The submissions take place just a month before the Upper House election, slated for July, and are all but certain to be voted down by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno refrained from commenting directly on the motions Wednesday but defended the government’s economic measures.

“The government will respond to the impact of soaring oil and food prices by curbing increases in domestic prices of gasoline, wheat and other commodities,” he told reporters on Wednesday morning before the motions were submitted.

Last month, the weekly Shukan Bunshun reported that Hosoda, who served as secretary-general of the LDP, sexually harassed female journalists, calling them late at night and inviting them to his home.

Hosoda has denied the allegations and threatened to sue the publisher. The CDP is also questioning whether he is fit to be speaker over his comment criticizing an already government-approved electoral redistricting plan.

Following a Supreme Court ruling on voter disparity, the government drafted an electoral district plan to add 10 Lower House seats to urban areas, mostly in the Tokyo region, and slash 10 seats in 10 rural prefectures.

Hosoda, the former head of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s party faction, was opposed to the reduction of so many rural districts, including in not only Kishida’s home prefecture of Hiroshima but also Abe’s home prefecture of Yamaguchi. Instead, Hosoda is pushing an alternative plan that calls for taking away seats in three prefectures, none of them in Yamaguchi, and giving them to Tokyo.

Other LDP members, including heavyweights like former LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, who represents a district in Wakayama, have also expressed concern about the plan to shift around the 10 seats. But the opposition considered it inappropriate for Hosoda to openly criticize the plan while he is Lower House speaker — a position whose holder traditionally refrains from voicing an opinion on government policy decisions.

As for the no-confidence motion against the Kishida administration, CDP leader Kenta Izumi said the government failed to take appropriate action against spiking costs in Japan.

“The Kishida government has been ineffective in dealing with rising prices and has taken no measures in this fiscal year's supplementary budget to deal with the problem, except for measures to deal with the rise in gasoline prices,” Izumi said Wednesday morning. “This cannot be tolerated, as it will neither protect people's lives nor help the Japanese economy recover.”