Tokyo, Sept. 29 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government informed the Diet on Tuesday that an extraordinary session of the parliament will be convened Monday for a 69-day run. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara conveyed the schedule to the boards of the steering committees in both Diet chambers. At the session through Dec. 12, full-scale parliamentary debates will take place for the first time since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reshuffled her cabinet on Sept. 17. A key focus will be deliberations on a bill to cut the 8 pct consumption tax rate for food to 1 pct for two years from April 2027 and another to reduce the number of seats in the House of Representatives, the lower Diet chamber. The ruling and opposition camps are expected to clash over the two important bills. “I aim to deliver results over bills closely related to people’s daily lives, including the consumption tax cut bill,” Takaichi, also president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said at a meeting of senior LDP officials on Tuesday. “I will also hold sincere discussions with opposition parties,” she added. The prime minister will deliver a policy address on the opening day of the extraordinary Diet session. Question-and-answer meetings regarding the address will take place at plenary meetings of both the Lower House and the Senate, the Diet’s upper chamber formerly called the House of Councillors, for three days from Oct. 7. Then the budget committees of both chambers will hold debates with participation by the prime minister. Takaichi apparently hopes to reduce her participation in Diet deliberations. On this, a senior LDP official said that it would be appropriate for the prime minister to attend a budget committee meeting for only one day at both chambers. Meanwhile, opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, held a meeting of their Diet affairs chiefs for the Senate on Tuesday, agreeing to ask the ruling side for thorough deliberations on a series of bills. The consumption tax cut bill is expected to be submitted to the Diet mid-October. The bill is opposed by major opposition parties and groups, including the Democratic Party for the People and “Chudo,” the largest opposition group in the Lower House, which mainly comprises lawmakers of the Democratic Reform Party and Komeito. “We cannot approve a bill that lacks clear funding sources,” a senior CDP official said. The LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, together hold more than 70 pct of the Lower House seats. This means that even if the tax cut bill is rejected by the Senate, where the two parties do not have a majority, after approval at the Lower House, the ruling bloc would be able to enact the legislation by passing it at the all-important lower chamber again under a constitutional provision. Still, Masaji Matsuyama, chair of the General Assembly of LDP lawmakers in the Senate, said at a press conference Tuesday that he absolutely does not want to use the method, which could call the raison d’etre of the upper chamber into question. Opposition parties are against the Lower House seat reduction bill, which the JIP strongly advocates, as well. The ruling and opposition blocs have agreed to reach a conclusion by the end of October on reform of the Lower House election system after holding cross-party discussions. If they fail to meet the deadline, the ruling coalition would likely press opposition parties to discuss a bill including a provision that calls for automatically reducing the number of proportional representation seats in the lower chamber. In the special Diet session that ended in July, the ruling coalition forcibly began deliberations on this bill. Opposition parties denounced the move, and Diet deliberations were deadlocked as a result. Deliberations on the consumption tax cut bill in the upcoming extraordinary session could be affected depending on the attitude of the ruling coalition. Yuichi Goto, the Democratic Reform Party’s Diet affairs head and the opposition side’s main official for coordination with the ruling camp in the Lower House, said, “The same thing (as that in the special Diet session) would happen unless the ruling coalition acts in good faith.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
