New Komeito will be holding a party convention July 24 that will surely be closely watched by politicians of all stripes, as well as by the public. If the party decides to join the LDP-LP coalition, it will give a major fillip to the government's legislative capacity. Together, the three parties control a comfortable majority in both houses of the Diet, and major bills could sail through Parliament without a hiccup. This prospect causes both hopes and worries.
Already, New Komeito's support has opened the way for the governing coalition to get two controversial bills on the statute book before Parliament breaks up for the summer. One is the wiretapping bill, which would make it legal for law-enforcement authorities to set up phone taps in the course of investigating organized and other pernicious crimes. The other is the so-called flag-and-anthem bill, aimed at giving legal status to the Hinomaru as the national flag and the "Kimigayo" as the national anthem.
As delegates to the New Komeito convention weigh the momentous decision whether to join up with their erstwhile rivals, they should know there is one positive payoff: Grasping the levers of government would give the party an opportunity to live up to its political philosophy, as engraved in its original name, "komei-to (clean-government party)."