TOKYO, July 29 – Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologised today for leading his party to a stinging defeat in this month’s upper house election, and promised to do his best to make a fresh start.
Kan’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and its tiny ally lost their upper house majority in a July 11 poll after Kan, who has made fiscal reform a priority, floated a possible doubling of the five per cent sales tax to rein in the country’s massive public debt.
“I apologise for forcing onto everyone a serious, tough election due to my ill-prepared comments over the sales tax,” said Kan, who apologised at least three times in a speech to DPJ lawmakers.
The Democrats must seek new allies to help enact bills, including legislation to implement the state budget, although the they will remain in power by virtue of their grip on parliament’s more powerful lower house.
An increasing number of voters acknowledge the need to raise the sales tax eventually to finance the soaring social welfare costs of Japan’s ageing population, but Kan failed to persuade the public that he had a well-crafted plan for curing the country’s deep-seated economic woes.
“The election wasn’t a rout due to the sales tax or opposition to the sales tax,” Japan’s deputy finance minister Naoki Minezaki said separately.
“If you ask people to bear an extra burden and they don’t know what will happen to the welfare system, the argument just isn’t convincing,” Minezaki told a news conference. “There weren’t any numbers on how the quantity and quality of welfare would change and how much would be needed to fund that spending.”
Kan also said that DPJ pledges made ahead of the general election that swept the party to power for the first time last year should be kept as much as possible.
“We need to pursue as sincerely as possible the realisation of the lower house manifesto. If there are issues that we absolutely cannot realise due to fiscal problems, we need to explain thoroughly so people can understand,” he said.
The DPJ will hold a leadership vote in September and many suspect party powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa, who was sidelined during the upper house poll in an effort to woo voters put off by his scandal-tainted image, may be preparing a challenge to Kan. – Reuters
