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Japan PM, opposition clash on budget, election time
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-18 09:20 TOKYO -- Japan's main opposition party threatened to boycott parliament from Tuesday, Kyodo news agency said, after Prime Minister Taro Aso refused to say when he would submit a second extra budget for the recession-hit economy.
Aso told reporters that Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa had urged him to submit a budget to finance a promised government stimulus package with about 5 trillion yen ($51.86 billion) in new spending, including controversial payouts to individuals. Japan's economy slipped into recession in the third quarter, government data showed on Monday, battered by the global financial crisis. The Democrats, who with smaller allies control parliament's upper house and can delay bills, are growing frustrated with Aso's seeming reluctance to call a snap election for parliament's lower house that analysts say the ruling bloc could well lose. Aso and Ozawa met on Monday. The Democrats had said that if the meeting did not take place, they could decide to delay a vote in parliament on a bill to extend Japan's naval refuelling mission in support of US-led operations in Afghanistan. "I said that we are working on the extra budget now but that I couldn't say clearly when we would submit it. We are making efforts," Aso told reporters after the meeting. "But this has nothing to do with the refuelling bill or the bill to strengthen financial institutions," he added, referring to another bill to allow injection of public funds into banks. The refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean was halted for months last year because the opposition-dominated upper house of parliament, many of whose members say it breaches Japan's post-war pacifist constitution, sat on the bill for weeks. Democrats had appeared likely at first to vote swiftly on the refuelling bill this year, hoping its enactment would clear the way for Aso to call an early general election. But Aso, whose two predecessors were felled by the policy paralysis caused by the divided parliament, has since shied from calling an election, saying he wanted to put priority on shielding the economy from the global financial crisis. "It was the prime minister's pledge to the people that he would put the economy, and steps to support it, before an election," Ozawa told reporters. "It's too bad that he can't act on this." Political analysts have said a spate of polls showing Aso's popularity slipping since he took office in September were also making the prime minister wary of a vote that need not be held until next September. Aso said last Friday that enacting the government budget by the fiscal year starting next April 1 was important for the economy, a comment his ruling party No.2 told reporters meant an election was unlikely until spring or later. A survey by broadcaster TV Asahi released on Monday showed that support for cabinet has slid below one-third of voters, down 13.2 points from last month. Ozawa, 66, jolted the political scene last year by discussing a possible "grand coalition" with then-prime minister Yasuo Fukuda as a way to break through the deadlock in parliament. Ozawa offered to quit after his party rejected the idea, but DPJ lawmakers begged him to stay to avoid rupturing the group. |
