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2015/12/11
DPJ and JIP leaders meet, formally agree to form joint parliamentary group
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On December 11, DPJ President Katsuya Okada and Japan Innovation Party (JIP) President Yorihisa Matsuno met inside the Diet and formally agreed to form a joint parliamentary group and further strengthen the relationship of trust between the two parties in the forthcoming Diet session next year.
The agreement consisted of the following points: (1) to jointly implement the “Agreement on Basic Policies” that has been formulated as a result of repeated discussions between the two parties, (2) to form a joint parliamentary group in the forthcoming ordinary Diet session, (3) to further increase the relationship of trust between the parties, including at local level, with a view to enabling them to work together and realize a politics where changes of government are possible, (4) aim for broad cooperation and unification amongst the opposition forces, with shared policies and philosophies, and call for the cooperate of the various parties and parliamentary groups to this end. Okada and Matsuno signed the document and shook hands on the deal. The name of the new parliamentary group is “The Democratic Party of Japan, the Japan Innovation Party and the Club of Independents ”. It will have 92 members, 71 from the DPJ and 21 from the JIP.
In the press conference following the signing of the agreement, Okada stated, “From now on, both parties will do their utmost to cooperate based on this agreement. We will cooperate so that our efforts amount to more than the sum total of our numbers. We will work together to thoroughly check and control the out-of-control LDP and the Abe administration, and to produce counterproposals.” He said, “In order to govern the inter-party cooperation, we will establish a committee consisting of the Presidents and Secretaries General of both parties. With regard to policies, we will establish a policy coordination council comprising those responsible for policy making in both parties and open joint policy subcommittee meetings. If it is necessary to coordinate policy decisions made separately by the individual parties, this will take place in the policy coordination council. I would like to make speedy appointments of members to posts in the Diet, but since we have formed one parliamentary group, such matters will be jointly administered [with the JIP]. With regard to elections, we will establish a coordination council comprising of the secretaries general and election campaign committee chairs of both parties, and undertake coordination of candidates for the House of Councillors election and general election. This is the direction that our discussions took.” He stated that the leaders had agreed to discuss the fine points of the agreement with their parties and put them to the relevant party bodies.
Okada also commented on DPJ’s stance toward the forthcoming Diet session, saying, “We must continue to show our firm opposition to the Abe administration’s security legislation. In addition, the supplementary budget for fiscal 2015, a “one-off payment” of 30 000 yen to pensioners on low incomes is representative of the supplementary budget for fiscal 2015, but taken as a whole vote-buying measures are rampant. It is just as if the government has lost all fiscal discipline and abandoned the move to fiscal consolidation. With regard to the consumption tax, it is said that the government will reduce taxes to the tune of 1 trillion yen by implementing reduced tax rates without the necessary preconditions for doing so being fulfilled. We must also engage in thorough debate on such issues.”
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