The Liberal Democratic Party on Jan. 22 held a party convention in Tokyo. LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki said that this year is the time to end the Democratic Party of Japan government. The problem is that while the LDP is strong at criticizing the DPJ government, it cannot clearly present its stance on basic policy matters.

The LDP's platform for 2012 adopted in the convention criticized the DPJ by saying that it has thrown away main promises it made in its manifesto for the 2009 Lower House election, which brought the DPJ to power, and is forcibly pushing policies it did not promise to people beforehand — meaning the planned consumption tax raise and Japan's participation in the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) free trade scheme.

The LDP's stance on these two issues is ambiguous. Its 2012 platform says that it will not join the DPJ's attempt to raise the consumption tax, which it said is a violation of the DPJ's election manifesto. But the LDP itself called for raising the tax from the current 5 percent to 10 percent in its manifesto for the 2010 Upper House election.