That rowdy budget committee

The Budget Committee in the House of Councillors is currently debating the 2007 supplementary budget before moving on to the 2008 budget.

The opposition, now in control of the HC, has been giving the prime minister and members of his cabinet a rough time in deliberations, at least according to Yamamoto Ichita, LDP HC member. Writing at his blog, Mr. Yamamoto complained about "excessive vulgar attacks" on the government from the opposition seats. He also complained that the government seats were "too quiet."

According to Mainichi, Murata Renho, DPJ HC member and former TV talent, cited the Social Insurance Agency's manual for dealing with pensioners to question the prime minister. The manual instructs bureaucrats to ask pensioners about "the biggest news story in a particular year" to help jog their memories. Ms. Murata thus asked Mr. Fukuda about the important news from 1976. The prime minister replied, "It does not occur to me quickly," this despite 1976 being the year that his father became prime minister.

The pestering of Prime Minister Fukuda doesn't accomplish much aside from embarrassing him — and showing his age — but these episodes show the lingering weakness of the Diet's committees, even the Budget Committee. Despite opposition control of the HC, does anyone doubt that important deals will be worked out anywhere but in Diet interpellations?

The beginning of divided government

The DPJ, now calling the shots on the administration of the Upper House, has announced the distribution of the chairmanships of Upper House committees, and in a gesture that strikes me as magnanimous, has given the chairmanship of the Budget Committee to the LDP. The LDP has named Konoike Yoshitada to fill the post.

While the House of Representatives has ultimate responsibility for the budget, it is important to remember that the budget committee in both houses is the main forum for questioning the government on all manner of subjects. With the LDP holding the chairmanship, it will have the power to end questioning and send the budget bill to the whole house.

As Asahi emphasizes in an article today (not online), Japan is in for an experiment in divided government akin to that seen in France and the US. I'm not sure if anyone really knows what will happen from Monday on: will the DPJ wield its new powers forcefully, or will it hold back, act cooperatively and let the government destroy itself? Inter-party cooperation is by no means a new phenomenon in Japanese politics, but the process is about to be turned inside-out. Whereas cooperation previously was the result of the LDP's trying to include opposition parties in the policy making process through compromises behind closed doors, cooperation and competition will now take place publicly, along the institutional battle lines between Upper House, Lower House, and government.

Indeed, Asahi's editorial today views the start of the special Diet session as the first act of a new stage of political reform.

"If there is misgovernment, the majority should be exchanged, and administration should change hands," writes Asahi. "This tension has activated Japanese democracy. This debate has proceeded from the introduction of single-seat electoral districts and the reorganization of political parties. With the reversal of the majority in the Upper House, the power to reject the governing coalition's bills has been given to the opposition. Without the opposition's cooperation, the government cannot be administered; the opposition bears this responsibility. This means that the circumstances coming into being should also be called 'half change of government.'"

Whether the experiment in divided government will be long-lived remains to be seen. The DPJ will continue to push for an early dissolution of the House of Representatives and a general election, and with the floodgates open on reports of corrupt practices by members of the government and LDP executives, the DPJ will have a lot of help from the media. The Nelson Report, citing the analysis of Peter Ennis of The Oriental Economist, suggests that Mr. Abe could be gone by November and that the anti-terror special measures law will be allowed to expire, giving the DPJ a not-inconsiderable victory.

Meanwhile, the Yosano-Aso team may have ignited a civil war in the LDP by inviting Mr. Hiranuma back to the party. Undoubtedly the younger members of the LDP can see the writing on the wall for their political careers.

It is unclear how much longer this turmoil in the political system will last, but the pressure for change appears to be swelling relentlessly; when all is said and done, Japan may find itself with a more transparent, dynamic political system.

Seen and heard at the Diet

I was in attendance at today's session of the Upper House's Budget Committee, where it was my boss's turn to question the government.

I managed to see a line of questioning derived entirely from my own research posed to Prime Minister Abe and Defense Minister Kyuma, which was satisfying -- although the acoustics of the chamber (and lousy mics) made it difficult to hear the replies.

Meanwhile, having sat in that room, I can understand why one often sees members in attendance asleep in the background; between the marathon length of the meetings and the excessive heating in the committee room, it's amazing that anyone can stay awake. (And let's not forget the prime minister's anti-charisma.)

One thing I've noted in watching Diet deliberations is how sensitive the Japanese political establishment is to (critical) commentary on Japan from abroad. In a short span of time today, both the recent NY Times editorial on the comfort women resolution, discussed in this post, and the recent Newsweek cover article on Abe's unpopularity were cited by questioners. This was not the first time that I've heard Diet members draw on Western coverage of Japan. (If anyone knows of a "political psychologist" who has studied Japan's national "neuroses" -- surely a rich topic -- please let me know.)

International criticism shows no sign of letting up. The latest publication is The Economist, which in the current issue has both a leader and an article about Abe's problems in the wake of his comments on the comfort women resolution. (Adamu beat me to writing about this article.) Abe remains in trouble, but he's also been fortunate in his enemies; despite weeks of opposition questioning in the budget committees of the Lower and Upper House, the opposition parties seem to have done little to hasten the pace of the decline in Abe's popularity . The Abe Cabinet has remained particularly defiant on the issue of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (AFF) Minister Matsuoka Toshikatsu's unusually large budget projections for "light, heat, and water" for an office at the Diet which had no utilities costs, with Minister Matsuoka still refusing to account for the irregularity (with no apparent pressure from the prime minister or other senior officials).

Matsuoka, for his part, is the subject of a recent book by Australian scholar Aurelia George Mulgan, called Power and Pork, which I am in the process of reading -- and which I plan to review.