Japan's upper house election no longer one horse race
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There is also the small matter of the DPJ promising before last year's lower house elections that they would not raise consumption tax for another four years.
Kan's speech at the Japan National Press Club recently suggested that this promise would be roundly ignored and comes hot on the heels of former premier Yukio Hatoyama reneging on a pre- election promise to move a controversial air base off Okinawa island -- a promise he failed to keep, resulting in his demise as the leader of Japan.
Aside from reiterating Kan's commitment to the U.S.-Japan security alliance and as recently as this weekend at the G8 and G20 summits in Toronto, Canada, President Barack Obama recapitulated his belief that Japan represents the cornerstone of peace and security in the Asia Pacific region, Kan has yet to elucidate his plans to tighten political and economic alliances with a rapidly developing China, and on the home front exactly how, for example, he plans to "relieve" the base hosting burden shouldered by the residents of Okinawa Prefecture.
Hence, the DPJ may find their manifesto and subsequent pledges are taken by the public with a pinch of salt, or outright skepticism.
Indeed, New Komeito party chief Natsuo Yamaguchi has said to Kan that he must first apologize to the citizens of Japan for an inaccurate manifesto before even considering raising the consumption tax.
Another issue at which opposition parties have taken aim is the DPJ's continuation of the monthly child allowance. The policy, implemented in April of this year, is attracting a lot of criticism amid the nation's severe financial conditions and it is estimated that in fiscal 2011, the allocations will cost the nation somewhere in the region of 5.4 trillion yen (60.44 billion U.S. dollars).
"On the one hand Kan, thanks to his previous experience of handling the nation's finances, has a degree of credibility behind him when discussing issues of (fiscal) reform and tackling deflation," Tetsuyo Shimura, director of affairs at the Asian Exchange Foundation, told Xinhua.
"However, whilst child benefit for example is a winning ticket with the public, Kan's ideas for massive fiscal restoration are fairly challenging and if they are not implementable or fail at a later stage, we could see a very short reign for a DPJ already plagued with issues of money mismanagement and back room dealings. Kan's moves towards cross-party discussions represent a progressive move forward for Japanese politics, although some are saying it's the DPJ's way of sharing the blame if things don't work out," he said.
Lawmaker Hajime Ishii who is head of the Democrat's election campaign candidly said recently that if a vote were held now, the DPJ would get around 50 seats or so, this unfortunately would not be enough and his words will hardly inspire an increasingly skeptical electorate.
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