TOKYO (MNI) – The new secretary-general of the ruling Democratic
Party of Japan on Monday called for a more transparent political funding
system as part of the DPJ election campaign platform.

“We have to regain our public confidence,” Yukio Edano, who was
appointed to the number two position at the ruling party today, told a
news conference ahead of July elections for the House of Councillors.

“I will spearhead the move toward a total ban on political
donations from corporations and organizations. I don’t get much from
them anyway but I will cut mine to zero,” he said.

DPJ leader Naoto Kan, who was elected the 93rd prime minister in
parliament on Friday, has also called for cleaner politics and
“regaining public confidence first and foremost.” He is the fifth prime
minister of Japan in the past four years.

Kan, 63, appointed DPJ lawmakers in their 40s and 50s as senior
policymakers at the ruling party on Monday on the eve of picking his
cabinet.

Yukio Hatoyama resigned as prime minister last week after failing
to deliver the key election campaign promise to relocate a controversial
U.S. air base outside the tiny southern island of Okinawa. He stayed in
power less than nine months.

The public approval rating of the Hatoyama administration plunged
also due to political funding scandals involving both himself and Ichiro
Ozawa, who has led the party to landslide parliamentary election wins.
Ozawa was forced to resign as the DPJ secretary general at the request
of Hatoyama.

Since the DPJ took power away from the Liberal Democratic Party in
September last year, Edano, 46, has been focused on screening government
functions and slashing “wasteful” spending, first as a lower house
lawmaker and then as administrative reform minister under Hatoyama.

Edano told reporters that despite Ozawa’s problems with money and
politics, he still has things to learn from the 68-year-old conservative
politician in terms of uniting various voices and winning elections.

“Elections are just a means of achieving policy goals but if we
can’t use the tool, we can’t implement our policy ,” Edano said.

Outgoing premier Hatoyama claimed credit for shifting the political
focus toward supporting households from big businesses and reducing
lawmakers’ dependence on bureaucrats in policy-making.

As part of its campaign promises, the DPJ government has just begun
providing family allowances for children until they finish junior high
school (ninth grade) and paying subsidies to make public high school
education basically free.

But at the same time, the government has not addressed the issue of
how to continue funding these programs and growing costs of public
medicine and pensions, which economists said is making consumers
cautious about spending.

Edano said the DPJ must win the upper house election next month in
order to continue working toward policy goals that were not achieved
under the Hatoyama administration.

On Monday Kan also appointed Koichiro Gemba, 46, as chairman of the
DPJ’s policy research committee, reviving the position suspended while
Ozawa was running the day-to-day operations of the ruling party.

Kan also picked Shinji Tarutoko, 50, who challenged him in a bid
for the party president last week, as chairman of the party’s Diet
affairs committee.

msato@marketnews.com
** Market News International Tokyo Newsroom: 81-3-5403-4833 **

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