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On July 26, a general meeting of DPJ Diet members was held at party headquarters to hear Secretary General Goshi Hosono announce his resignation and approve appointments to fill vacancies in the party executive.
In his speech at the start of the meeting, DPJ President Banri Kaieda looked back on efforts to rebuild the party and to recover voters’ trust since he was appointed leader at the end of last year. He said that based on the result of the recent House of Councillors election, the efforts to recover public trust were “still a work in progress.” Kaieda said of the unchecked behaviour which is now expected of the Abe administration: “The DPJ must play a central role in combatting this, making our policies more polished and more specific.”
Regarding appointments to fill vacancies in the party leadership, Kaieda proposed that Acting Secretary General Akihiro Ohata would serve as Secretary General, and that the post of Chair of the Standing Officers Council, which had fallen vacant after the House of Councillors election, would be filled by Vice President Masayuki Naoshima, while the posts of Chair of the Organisation Committee and of the Public Relations Committee would be filled by the respective Vice Chairs Shinichiro Furumoto and Shin-kun Haku as Acting Chairs on a temporary basis. This proposal was approved by the floor. Kaieda added that a new party leadership lineup would be decided in accordance with the reduction in the number of DPJ Diet members in conjunction with the review of the House of Councillors election which is due to be completed by the end of August.
The following is a summary of Kaieda’s speech:
I would like to thank you all for gathering here today in the busy period post-election period. First of all, I must apologise to you all for the result of the recent House of Councillors election. Forty-four DPJ members of the House of Councillors had seats that were up for re-election, but only seventeen DPJ candidates were elected. We were on the receiving end of a very severe verdict from the voters. As I stand here today before you speaking as party president, I ask myself what qualifies me to address you in such a capacity. So why should I be speaking to you as President after we have suffered such a defeat? I think that my reason is much the same as the feelings that all of you here have, that “We must do something about the DPJ” and “We cannot allow the DPJ to collapse.”
Seven months ago I received your support to become the 10th President of the party. Then what I first did in acknowledgement of our general election defeat was to embark on a movement to “wear down the soles of our shoes” and engage in “dialogue and footwork”, which stressed the importance of visiting the regions. I myself travelled all around the country, and did my best to improve even a little the situation in which the people’s hopes had changed to despair during the three years and three months of DPJ government, and trust in the DPJ had been lost. Then came this House of Councillors election result, which shows that these efforts are still a work in progress. In February we held a party convention and approved a new party platform and the first report from the party reconstruction headquarters. I believe that having decided on a party platform was a step forward. We drafted the manifesto for the House of Councillors election based on this platform.
An extraordinary Diet session is expected to get underway on August 2, and I believe that this will see the start of unchecked behaviour by the Abe administration, which won a huge victory in this House of Councillors election. I think the direction they’ll be heading in is directly opposed to the society based on mutual coexistence which we stated that we would aim for in our platform, and with our goal to “protect lives and livelihoods” such as by dealing with employment and social security issues as we stipulated in our manifesto. In the face of such a movement [by the ruling parties] the DPJ must play a central role in combatting this, making our policies more polished and more specific. Recently, I have been hearing the phrase ‘opposition realignment’. The most important thing is that the DPJ should play a central role in such a process. I am convinced that the DPJ playing a central role means that the opposition parties must fight together toward the realization of a society based on mutual coexistence and toward realization of the policies called for in the DPJ platform and manifesto.
With regard to my actions of the last seven months, it is certainly true that they have unfortunately not borne fruit at this point in time. However, local elections will take place across Japan in the spring of 2015. I am strongly determined to produce visible results during the next year, which is the most important period for preparing for these elections.
With regard to the review of this House of Councillors election, we have already asked the various prefectural branches to conduct this work, and starting next week the party leadership will divide up the task between them of travelling to the regions and visiting various electoral districts. I would like to ask that not only I and other members of the executive, but also all of you Diet members assembled here today cooperate in efforts to visit the various regions.
Finally, as you all know, Secretary General Hosono has tendered his resignation. Secretary General Hosono made much more effort than I [during the campaign]. I am deeply grateful for his efforts, going to the point of collapse in obtaining the trust of many colleagues and losing his voice in the process. In the midst of a very difficult situation he did his best and gave me valuable support. The dilemma posed by him tendering his resignation leaves me with a choice between the lesser of two evils. Hosono has been and will be an irreplaceable resource for this party, and I urged him to stay on as Secretary General, and finally asked that he stay until the end of August, which he agreed to do. Due to the shifting circumstances after that, he then asked that a replacement be found as soon as possible, and so I have decided to appoint a new Secretary General on this occasion.
I would like once again to thank everyone for their recent efforts and to offer my sincere apologies to those who lost their seats due to our inadequacy.
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