The Diet adjourned on June 21, ending this year’s ordinary session, the first opportunity for it to debate the radical changes in the government’s security and nuclear energy policies that the Kishida administration announced late last year without seeking broad public debate.

Despite the serious implications of these policy shifts, the Diet failed to have any meaningful, in-depth debate on related issues during the 150-day session.

The Diet cannot claim to have fulfilled its role as the legislative branch of the government responsible for checking the administrative branch. It did not make serious efforts to build a broader consensus on the administration's deeply divisive policy decisions.

KISHIDA ESCHEWED DEBATE ON FINANCING

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida proposed major revisions to three key security policy documents in autumn 2021. But he avoided talking about the specifics, simply repeating that he was considering them.

Even during the Diet session, convened after he announced the revised security documents, Kishida was not keen to disclose related information or offer detailed explanations, saying he was not willing to “show his cards.”

For example, he revealed how many Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles the government planned to buy from the United States only immediately before the Lower House passed the budget bill.

This piece of information was important because the missiles can be used to strike enemy bases in a radical departure from the nation's defense-only postwar security policy.

Tucked in the budget for fiscal 2023, the first fiscal year for Kishida’s initiative to double defense spending, is the first postwar issuance of construction bonds--borrowing to finance public works projects--to pay for defense outlays.

This represents a break with the unwritten rule of no debt financing of the defense budget, which was based on the lessons from the devastating war. The ruling coalition, led by the Liberal Democratic Party, quietly passed the budget bill by using its overwhelming majority in the Diet.

In the late stages of the session, the Diet also passed a bill to secure revenue sources to finance the military buildup that features, among other things, a plan to pool funds transferred from special accounts. But it is clear that this plan will not secure stable financing.

Debate on the specifics of the proposed tax hike to raise more than 1 trillion yen ($7.08 billion) for the defense budget expansion has been postponed. If things do not go as expected, the initiative could end up increasing the already huge government debt load.

The Kishida administration has acted in an extremely irresponsible manner.

There were no in-depth deliberations, either, on the administration’s decision to shift the nuclear energy policy from reducing the nation’s reliance on nuclear power generation to making maximum use of atomic energy, a move that disregards the bitter lessons from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The government only offered abstract and unclear answers to questions concerning tough challenges related to this policy shift. The move to bundle five energy-related bills including one to promote renewable energy sources into omnibus legislation prevented well-focused debate on core issues when time for deliberations was limited.

EXPECTATIONS FOR SNAP ELECTION HAMPERED DISCUSSIONS

Many challenges and questions concerning other important topics that are directly linked to people’s lives and livelihoods remain unaddressed.

As is the case of the defense budget, the government also failed to engage in serious debate on the specifics of how to fund Kishida’s “different dimension” package of measures to support childbearing and child rearing while stressing proposed benefits such as expansion of child allowances.

Kishida promised that taxpayers will not be asked to bear an effective additional burden to help finance this initiative. But this pledge seems nothing but a cheap trick.

There should be no partisan positions on policy efforts to raise the nation’s low birthrate. Why is the Diet unable to have a nonpartisan debate on how to build a new system for society-wide mutual help to tackle the demographic challenge?

Despite a rash of problems that have plagued the My Number personal identification system, the Diet passed a bill to basically replace the current health insurance certificate system with the My Number Card program in autumn 2024.

On June 21, Kishida set up a task force to conduct a sweeping review of the My Number Card system, stressing that the step represents an emergency response to the situation similar to the one to deal with the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Instead of striving to solve the problems according to the predetermined schedule, however, the government should put the top priority on removing anxiety among the people. It should provide detailed and convincing explanations to do so even when the Diet is in recess.

Since the beginning of the Diet session, there was speculation about Kishida’s possible dissolution of the Lower House for a snap election to boost his chances of re-election as LDP president in the party election scheduled next autumn.

Expectations of a snap poll grew markedly as his Cabinet approval ratings rose after the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May. In the last days of the Diet session, Kishida deliberately created strong political “winds” by indicating he might move to dissolve the Lower House.

His apparent attempt to generate political tensions hindered both the ruling and opposition parties from tackling head-on important policy issues through Diet debate as they began preparations for a possible election, such as compiling a list of candidates, or trying to impress the voting public with political grandstanding.

While many policy issues were left half-baked, there was no call for extending the Diet session. Kishida’s political maneuvering underscored afresh the harm that prime ministers can do by playing with their power to dissolve the chamber.

ISHIN’S FAILURE TO ACT AS LEGITIMATE OPPOSITION PARTY

Under the nation’s parliamentary Cabinet system, with the government supported by the ruling parties, opposition parties have an important role to play as a political force to monitor and keep in check the administrative branch.

But none of the oppositions parties could perform this role effectively by highlighting problems with the government’s policies and winning broad public support for their efforts as the watchdog. There is no disputing the fact that the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) is not living up to this mission.

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and the Democratic Party for the People, meanwhile, did not act like legitimate opposition parties with regard to certain bills.

An opposition party is not supposed to oppose all bills submitted by the government or the ruling camp, of course. They have every right to make their own decisions on how to respond to each bill according to their own policy platforms and political agendas.

In the face of a deeply flawed piece of legislation, however, they are expected to try to correct serious problems with the bill and demand revisions to make it more acceptable to a broader range of the public.

The two opposition parties voted against the budget bill and the bill to fund the defense spending expansion. But they opted to vote for a controversial bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law, which critics warned could increase the risk of deporting foreign nationals who deserve to be protected, after a minor revision that did not address its core flaws.

The two opposition parties also joined the LDP and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, in passing a bill to promote understanding of the LGBT community that critics say runs counter to the global trend toward eliminating discrimination and prejudice against sexual minorities, as well as the bill to promote nuclear power generation.

Ishin is pursuing a goal of taking power in the future after becoming the largest opposition party. But its actions indicate that it is a political force that only is contributing to keeping the ruling coalition in power.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 22