— Recasts With Abe’s Response

TOKYO (MNI) – In a rare announcement during a parliamentary debate,
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Wednesday that he would
dissolve the lower house of the Diet on Friday if opposition parties
agreed to the ruling coalition’s plan to cut parliamentary seats in
electoral reform.

In response, Shinzo Abe, who heads the main opposition Liberal
Democratic Party told reporters after the debate that the LDP will
endorse the reform plans in parliament, according to public broadcaster
NHK.

Now that Noda is set to dissolve the lower house on Friday, national
elections for the 480-seat House of Representatives are likely to be
held on Dec. 9 or Dec. 16.

Opposition parties, which control the 242-seat House of Councilors
(upper house), have been calling on Noda to dissolve the lower house and
call a snap election but he has been cautious amid falling public
support for his cabinet after telling the opposition camp in August that
he would do so “in the near future.”

“I wouldn’t mind dissolving (the lower house) on the 16th at the
end of this week if you were to agree to our plans to reduce the number
of the seats (in the lower house) in the ordinary parliamentary session
next year and until then lower lawmakers’ salaries,” Noda told Abe, who
became the LDP leader in September.

The Prime Minister said these are necessary conditions for asking
the public to bear higher costs of living to be brought on by the
government’s plan to double the 5% sales tax by 2015.

A 150-day annual ordinary Diet session usually begins in mid- to
late January.

Noda also told Natsuo Yamaguchi, who heads the New Komeito, that “I
want to accomplish” dissolving the lower house in exchange for an accord
on Diet reform between his ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the main
opposition parties.

In August, the Diet enacted by majority vote legislation that would
double the current 5% sales tax by 2015 in two stages and improve social
security services on condition that the economy continues to recover
steadily.

In exchange for support from the two main opposition parties for the
bills, Noda responded to opposition demands and made a vague promise
then that he would dissolve the lower house “in the near future.”

Japanese newspapers reported earlier this week that Noda has
decided to dissolve the lower house by the end of the year as the DPJ
has reached a tentative deal with main opposition parties on a
deficit-financing bill.

Aside from an urgently needed enactment of a bill to allow the
government to issue debt for financing fiscal 2012 spending, Noda has
repeatedly said he wants parliament to approve lower-house electoral
reform bills in order to address disparities in voter representation and
the establishment of a national forum for social security reform before
deciding on when to dissolve the lower house.

On the deficit-financing bond bill, lower house lawmakers are
expected to vote on Thursday, following a three-party agreement among
the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito.

The government plans to hike the current 5% consumption tax rate to
8% in April 2014 and to 10% in October 2015 on condition that the
economy is growing roughly at a real 2% at the time.

The DPJ took power away from the LDP in 2009 by promising to boost
Japan’s fiscal health through slashing “wasteful” government spending
and reallocating tax money for projects that would support families with
children and reduce unemployment.

But the DPJ government soon hit a policy wall, realizing that there
was only so much it could do to trim spending in order to generate funds
for necessary public programs.

–email: msato@mni-news.com

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