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Yomiuri Shimbun file photos Yasukazu Hamada, left, and Jun Azumi
The Yomiuri Shimbun
15:18 JST, November 16, 2024
The government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have been increasingly wary of deliberations at the House of Representatives Budget Committee, as its chairmanship, secured by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in light of the recent lower house election results, has great authority over the committee’s proceedings.
Jun Azumi, former chairman of the CDPJ’s Diet Affairs Committee, has assumed the post. This is the first time in 30 years for an opposition party member to become the lower house Budget Committee chair.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is also the LDP president, and members of his Cabinet will find it tough to get by with ambiguous answers in question and answer session and negotiate over the committee’s agenda, raising the possibility that voting on the budget plan could be delayed.
The committee takes up a wide range of topics concerning national administration. In particular, its question and answer session on fundamental issues is to be attended by the prime minister and all cabinet ministers, and is broadcast live on television, attracting much attention. It has even served as a venue for investigating scandals involving past prime ministers or cabinet members.
In the past, when opposition parties tried to ask questions in tenacious pursuit of a specific matter, the committee chairman — a post long held by members of the LDP — would check them from doing so, thus keeping the proceedings moving along.
However, Azumi is highly likely to repeatedly ask the ministers for answers, calling for clear explanations if he thinks they are not answering questions squarely.
“I hope we can count on him as he will be playing the role of a gyoji [sumo referee],” CDPJ Diet Affairs Committee Chairperson Hirofumi Ryu said to reporters on Friday, showing his eagerness toward lower house Budget Committee deliberations in the extraordinary Diet session to be convened on Nov. 28.
Regarding the allocation of committee chairmanships at the lower house, the CDPJ had pressed the LDP, which has become a minority ruling coalition party, to give up the chairmanship of either the Budget Committee or the Rules and Administration Committee. The LDP then gave up the chairmanship of the Budget Committee.
The chair of the Rules and Administration Committee assists the speaker and vice speaker of the lower house and is in charge of the schedule and agenda of plenary sessions. Yasukazu Hamada of the LDP has assumed that post.
Some in the LDP believe that the party’s decision to prioritize the chairmanship of the rules and administration committee is “aimed at safeguarding the prime minister’s right to dissolve the lower house,” bearing in mind the possibility of holding same-day elections for both houses of the Diet, by holding a lower house election in conjunction with the House of Councillors election slated for next summer.
One former cabinet member also pointed out that the budget proposal is directly related to the people’s lives, likely meaning that “the opposition parties cannot do anything unreasonable in the Diet deliberations.”
On Friday, Ryu held talks with Tetsushi Sakamoto, chairman of the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee, and reached a broad agreement that the extraordinary Diet session would be held for 24 days, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 21.
At the Budget Committee, the issue of politics and money is slated to be taken up for deliberation as the main topic before the committee begins deliberations on the fiscal 2024 supplementary budget proposal, indicating that talks over the Diet schedule have already been moving at the opposition party’s pace.
In 1994, the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata, the leader of a minority ruling party at the time, was forced to resign when the then-opposition LDP presented a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet after the passage of the budget plan.
A senior LDP official said, “As a minority ruling coalition party, we cannot slacken our concentration even for a moment in the Diet.”
