Japan PM set for new showdown in divided parliament

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda called on Friday for Japan’s divided parliament to put the public’s interests first as he headed for a fresh showdown with the powerful opposition over key policies.

Having forced through a law last week to resume a controversial naval mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, Fukuda now faces the challenge of dealing with issues closer to home, including a row over fuel taxes.

But with opposition parties controlling the upper house, a policy stalemate is expected to continue even as voter worries grow over a slump in the stock market and the government’s mismanagement of pension records.

“There are a mountain of policy issues to be dealt with in this parliament session that have a direct impact on people’s livelihoods,” Fukuda said in a speech to launch a new session of parliament.

The session begins just one week after the end of the last one, which was extended partly to push through the law enabling the naval mission.

“Politics has a responsibility to the people to ensure that the ruling and opposition parties have thorough discussions under a trusting relationship, and that they form conclusions and manage the government.”

The parliamentary deadlock has fanned talk that Fukuda, a 71-year-old moderate who took over last September, will call a lower house election this year, either after the national budget is enacted in late March or after a July Group of Eight summit.

But a lower house poll is not needed until September 2009 and Fukuda, grappling with a fall in public support ratings, said earlier this week he was reluctant to call an early general election for fear of affecting the economy.

With Japan’s key stock index hitting a two-year low this week, the Nikkei business daily said politics was already weighing on Japan’s drive for structural reforms and that foreign investors were selling off Japanese stocks as a result.

“Politicians should remind themselves that reforms are more important than the political landscape,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

The ruling coalition can use its two-thirds majority in the lower house to override a rejection of bills in the upper house, as it did last week with the bill to restart the mission that refuels U.S. and other ships patrolling the Indian Ocean.

Tokyo, Friday, Reuters