Extra Diet Session Closes in Japan

Tokyo, Dec. 17 (Jiji Press)–The Diet, Japan’s parliament, concluded its 58-day extraordinary session Wednesday after passing a fiscal 2025 supplementary budget and legislation to abolish the provisional gasoline tax surcharge. The ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party, also known as Nippon Ishin no Kai, introduced a bill to cut the number of seats in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet. But the bill will be carried over to the ordinary session starting next month because there was no deliberation on it during the just-ended session. Opposition forces including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan did not submit any no-confidence motion against the cabinet of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during the extraordinary session. “We want to implement policy measures powerfully one by one on the basis of the ruling coalition,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told a press conference. During the latest session, which began on Oct. 21, Takaichi was elected the country’s first female prime minister. Ruling and opposition parties mainly discussed measures against inflation. Takaichi has angered China for her parliamentary remarks on Nov. 7 that a possible Taiwan contingency could constitute what Japan calls a survival-threatening situation, allowing the country to exercise its right to collective self-defense. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]