The most unpredictable session of parliament in years is slated to open Friday with the ruling coalition, divested of a majority in the last Lower House election, needing to earn backing from the opposition for every piece of legislation it puts forward — starting with the fiscal 2025 budget.
For the minority government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the days of pushing through bills on the back of an overwhelming majority in both chambers of parliament are over, to be replaced by an inevitably more conciliatory approach in dealing with the opposition.
In a recent televised debate, Ishiba himself admitted that the new style of low-profile, sensible compromise that began in the last session of parliament late last year is here to stay.
“In order to gain the support of as many parties as possible, it's important to create an environment where (even) the voters who back the opposition parties can say ‘that’s right,’” Ishiba said, after deflecting questions on a potential reorganization of the ruling LDP-Komeito coalition.
The first hurdle for Ishiba’s government will be garnering enough consensus across the aisle for the ¥115.5 trillion ($738 billion) budget proposal approved by the Cabinet last December — while making as few concessions as possible. In the first half of the session, a great deal of the government’s energy will be focused on emerging from the budget committee unscathed.
In order to secure support for the budget, the coalition has strived to keep its options open, setting up policy negotiations with two opposition parties — the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) and Nippon Ishin no Kai — while maintaining an open channel for communication with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the largest opposition force in parliament.
Last December, in exchange for promises of government action on its signature measures — namely raising the threshold for income tax exemptions and scrapping the gasoline tax — the DPP voted in favor of a supplementary budget for fiscal 2024.
The party has long maintained that an amendment to the income tax threshold is a non-negotiable condition for it to support government bills, and talks to fine-tune this agreement are expected to resume in upcoming weeks.
Similarly, last month, the ruling coalition kickstarted a dialogue with Nippon Ishin on a full-fledged reform of the education system — with an eye on making high-school tuition universally free — with the aim of reaching a preliminary agreement by mid-February.
Nippon Ishin and the DPP hold 38 and 28 seats, respectively, in the lower chamber of parliament, meaning that the support of either party alone would suffice to secure passage of the budget.
As the Ishiba administration's approval rating remains lukewarm, the coalition is expected to make some concessions. The outcome of the political maneuvering behind these compromises and their political cost will likely determine the fate of the administration in the long run.
Both the DPP and Nippon Ishin’s proposals are seen as costly, and, as shown in the heated debate with the DPP over tax reform late last year, any rushed move would face fierce internal resistance within the LDP.
A failure to pass the budget in both chambers by the end of March would plunge the government into a level of chaos rarely seen in the country’s recent history, and severely jeopardize Ishiba’s standing.
Meanwhile, under the leadership of Yoshihiko Noda, the CDP has demonstrated its readiness to engage with the ruling coalition in exchange for policy concessions to tout to its electoral base. Noda has hinted that, along the same lines as last year, the party might seek to leverage its renewed influence to clinch favorable budget concessions.
The CDP’s decision to answer the coalition’s calls to establish a joint forum for policy negotiations throughout the session aligns with this approach.
“It’s our role to thoroughly check and oversee the government’s proposals,” Noda said Sunday of the budget, which includes record social spending and grants to local governments as well as a surge in defense expenditure.
“I expect there will also be opportunities to seek revisions of the ¥115.5 trillion budget proposal this time around,” he said.
While advocating for the abolition of corporate donations — which didn’t make it into the last legal revision in December — the CDP is expected to lead a rather divided opposition on two key fronts: a push for accountability from the LDP over its slush funds scandal, and a potential revision of the civil code to allow spouses to retain different surnames.
Last week, opposition parties agreed to formally summon Junichiro Matsumoto — previously an accountant of an LDP faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who has been sentenced to three years in jail for his role in the scandal — for parliamentary questioning, insisting it is an essential requirement before discussions on the budget can begin.
The opposition parties have been arguing that the circumstances behind the kickback scheme at the center of the scandal that emerged in late 2023 remain unclear, despite a year of probes and parliamentary questioning.
The recent implication of several LDP members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in a similar scandal, coupled with the CDP’s control of the budget committee, will present the opposition with a golden opportunity to reproach the government.
The opposition is also expected to spearhead the debate in the CDP-chaired judicial affairs committee over a legal revision to allow spouses to retain different surnames.
Ishiba, who in the past had expressed his support for such a change, has repeatedly urged the LDP to accelerate internal discussions toward reaching a consensus. But the party remains deeply divided on the matter.
A less controversial bill to boost Japan’s active cyberdefenses is also slated for submission in the upcoming session, likely without any strong resistance from most of the opposition.
Guarantees to private institutions that provide financial support to domestic chipmaker Rapidus will be the subject of another government-sponsored bill currently in the works, together with a debate on a reform of the Science Council, a government advisory body made up of academics. Discussions over an overhaul of the pension system and social insurance system are also expected.
With a summer of elections — the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly and half of the seats in the Upper House are up for reelection — set to follow after the parliamentary session concludes on June 22, each party is expected to calibrate each and every one of its moves and strategize in parliament so as to maximize its electoral gains.
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