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On February 19, former Prime Minister Akihiko Noda, now DPJ Supreme Advisor, took to the podium in an interpellatory session of the House of Representatives Committee on Budget, asking Prime Minister Abe about reducing the number of seats in the House of Representatives and other matters.
Noda stated, “You have still not actually realized a reduction in the number of seats in the House of Representatives. In Prime Minister’s Question Time on November 14, 2012, I, then Prime Minister, and Shinzo Abe, then President of the LDP, promised to realize this. The actual content of our promise was that ‘we would be prepared to sacrifice ourselves’ [by reducing the number of Diet members when asking the Japanese people to accept an increase in the consumption tax.] I kept my promise to dissolve the House of Representatives, but the pledge ‘to reduce the number of seats in the House of Representatives during the next Diet session’ has still not been fulfilled today. The LDP as the largest party in the Diet bear a heavy responsibility for this, but they show no awareness of this. Not having managed to reduce the number of seats is tantamount to having lied to the public. I totally condemn this behavior.”
Next Noda commented on electoral reform for the House of Representatives, criticizing the LDP’s backward looking stance as being, “Too little, too late. The government should have raised the consumption tax to 8% and rectified the vote-value disparity prior to the last general election. But what is done is done.” He urged Prime Minister Abe to initiate further reductions in the number of seats in the Diet, saying, “We must not stop with a 10-seat reduction. I would like the Prime Minister to commit himself to continued discussions regarding reform of the political system, including further reductions in the number of seats.”
Noda also commented on the economy, pointing out that [real] GDP grew at an annualized rate of 1.7% during the time the DPJ was in power, but only at 0.6% during the time of the Abe administration, saying, “The government should place more emphasize on the growth strategy. The DPJ administration emphasized social security, small and medium-sized businesses and the regions. That is the difference between our perspective and that of the Abe administration. I would like the current government to adopt this perspective.”
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