Japan Ordinary Diet Session Convened for 150-Day Run

Tokyo, Jan. 18 (Jiji Press)--An ordinary session of the Diet,
Japan's parliament, was convened on Monday for a 150-day run to June 16,
with the ruling and opposition parties to spar over politics and money.

The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party will grill Prime
Minister Yukio Hatoyama over a political funding scandal involving ruling
Democratic Party of Japan bigwig Ichiro Ozawa.
It is bad timing for the DPJ to have the Diet session start because
Tomohiro Ishikawa, a former secretary to Ozawa and a House of Representative
member, was arrested on Friday over the scandal.
LDP lawmakers are poised to ask Hatoyama, also DPJ president, why
he defends scandal-tainted Ozawa, its secretary-general, despite the arrests
of Ishikawa and others over the failure to correctly report funds linked to
a land purchase by Ozawa's fund management body.
The LDP will not agree to start deliberations at the Lower House
Budget Committee on a proposed second supplementary budget for the year
ending in March unless the ruling bloc allows the parliament to summon Ozawa
as an unsworn witness.
The wrangling over the funding scandal will likely prevent the
ruling coalition from having the Diet smoothly enacting the second extra
budget for fiscal 2009 and a main budget for fiscal 2010.
The government, which resolves to prevent the economy from
suffering a double-dip recession, wants the Diet to pass the second extra
budget by the end of January and the full budget by the end of March.
Hatoyama stressed his administration's emphasis on the enactment of the
budgets before reporters Monday morning.
The government also seeks parliamentary approval of a bill to give
allowances for child-rearing families and another to start tuition-free high
school education, ahead of the House of Councillors election this summer.
The House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of
the Diet, the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, will decide on
special committees at their respective plenary session on the day.
Then, in both chambers, Finance Minister Naoto Kan is set to make a
fiscal policy speech to express his strong resolve to fight against
deflation in Japan.
Question-and-answer sessions in connection with Kan's speech will
take place Tuesday at the Lower House and Wednesday at the Upper House.
Four government speeches including Hatoyama's policy speech will be
postponed until the enactment of the second extra budget.
The LDP will also grill the ruling coalition over its delay in
making a final decision on where to transfer the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma
air station in Okinawa Prefecture.


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