The Diet on Oct. 14 enacted the postal-privatization bills that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called the "centerpiece" of his reform agenda. It was a dream come true for Koizumi, after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komeito won two-thirds of the Lower House seats in a snap election following the dissolution of the chamber. However, the enactment was only the first step in Koizumi's wide-ranging reform plans.
Seiji Maehara, chief of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, predicted that reform would become a major political trend and expressed determination to present his counterproposals to compete with Koizumi's agenda in five areas, including the reorganization of the bureaucracy to the decentralization of power.
The question is: Will the new "2005 system," based on rivalries between two major political parties, push reform and change Japan? In a policy speech to the Diet, Koizumi said he was determined to push reform and drastically slim down the government.