Diet Session Extended; Upper House Election Delayed; Alberto Fujimori to Run?
It’s not quite time for the next edition of TPR News yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a quick update:
First, this morning the Yomiuri reported that a 12 day extension of the current Diet session was basically agreed to on Tuesday. That would extend the session to July 5, and push the Upper House election back one week, to July 29. According to the Yomiuri, the Secretaries General of the LDP and its coalition partner, New Komeito, will finalize their plans and then request that Lower House Speaker Yohei Kono initiate procedures to extend the session.
The Yomiuri quotes an unnamed opposition lawmaker as saying, “We won’t allow the ruling parties to extend the session just because it suits them.”
The Asahi reports that senior LDP lawmakers see the 12 day extension as necessary to pass key pieces of legislation. On Tuesday, Toranosuke Katayama, the secretary-general of the LDP’s Upper House caucus, told reporters, “We cannot just scrap important bills, and we have no choice but to prioritize their passage, even if it affects the date of the voting.”
In slightly stranger news, the Kokumin Shinto (or People’s New Party) has asked Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru who stands accused of crimes against humanity and is currently under house arrest in that country, to run in the Upper House election next month.
Kokumin Shinto was formed by former LDP lawmaker Shizuka Kamei in response to former Prime Minister Koizumi’s plan to privatize Japan’s postal system.
Related Posts:
- Seijigiri #27 - The Final Night of the Diet Session, Alberto Fujimori, and Defense
- Seijigiri #39: MSDF back to the Indian Ocean, Pensions, Consumer Affairs and the end of the 2007 Diet Session (Finally!)
- DPJ: 60, LDP: 37 - Abe Tunnels Under the Hashimoto Line after Upper House Election
- State of the Trans-Pacific Radio for August
- Seijigiri #41: The Budget is Passed, and Fukuda is Feeling the Pressure
