As the Diet started discussions last week, Mr. Banri Kaieda, head of the former ruling Democratic Party of Japan, queried Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a Lower House plenary session. Although the Dec. 16 general election decimated the DPJ's strength in the Diet chamber to 57 seats — less than one-fourth of its pre-election strength of 233 seats — the party is still the No. 1 opposition party. As such, its members have an obligation to check the moves of the Abe administration, especially its economic policy and hawkish stance in matters related to the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.
This is all the more important because the Japan Restoration Party and Your Party are close to Mr. Abe in ideology, especially in constitutional questions, and are inclined toward market fundamentalist economic policy.
In his question to Mr. Abe, Mr. Kaieda squarely attacked his economic policy by saying that, under the Abe administration, two things are being revived: (1) pork-barrel politics with "tribal" Diet members representing particular vested interests becoming rampant and (2) a neoliberal economic policy that will lead to creation of a society in which the law of the jungle prevails.