How to privatize postal services is the biggest issue in the regular Diet session. The government plans to introduce a privatization package in mid-March, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has vowed to "get it through the current session at all costs." But with many members of the Liberal Democratic Party up in arms about it, a showdown looms between Koizumi and his own party.
The issue has a direct bearing on the lives of people, yet it is drawing far less public attention than the deployment of Self-Defense Forces personnel in Iraq. That's because the public does not yet fully understand that privatization is key to structural reform in Japan. Koizumi has yet to produce specific reform plans and explain them in plain language.
The prime minister's confrontational stance has been criticized by Mikio Aoki, head of the LDP caucus in the Upper House. "If you want to push reform, you have to listen to what other people have to say," he said during a plenary question-and-answer session.