Japan LDP to Create New Team on Imperial Succession

Tokyo, Oct. 27 (Jiji Press)--Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party will set up a new team to discuss measures to ensure stable Imperial succession and secure Imperial Family members, sources said Friday. The team will be placed directly under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the LDP's president, and headed by LDP Vice President Taro Aso, party executives said. The LDP wants to revive discussions on the issue in the party for revitalization of such debates in the Diet, the country's parliament. In January last year, the LDP began discussions on Imperial succession at a different team on issues related to the Imperial Family. But the team is dormant. Hiroshi Moriyama, chairman of the party's General Council, told a press conference Friday that the LDP is preparing to establish the new team as an institution under the direct control of the president. Discussions on stable Imperial succession have stalled due to wide differences of opinion among LDP members and between ruling and opposition parties. In his policy speech Monday, Kishida expressed a wish to see active discussions in the Diet, so that a "consensus of the legislature" can be formed as soon as possible. At a Diet meeting Wednesday, Kishida promised to lead discussions in his party. Meanwhile, Keiichi Ishii, secretary-general of Komeito, the LDP's coalition partner, told a press conference Friday that his party has no plan to discuss the issue immediately. At the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, President Kenta Izumi said Friday that the party aims to make preparations by the time talks begin between the ruling and opposition parties. Prince Hisahito is the only male member of the Imperial Family eligible to succeed to the throne in the generation after Emperor Naruhito and his younger brother, Crown Prince Akishino, who is the father of the 17-year-old prince. In November last year, the government submitted to the Diet a report by a panel of experts on stable Imperial succession. The report presented two options for securing Imperial Family members while stopping short of offering a conclusion on ways to ensure stable succession. One option is to allow female members to retain their Imperial Family status after getting married, while the other is to grant the Imperial Family status through adoption to male members in the paternal line of former Imperial Family branches stripped of the status in 1947. Then Speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, called on each party to consider the proposals. In April last year, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), an opposition force, drew up a report backing the option of using adoption to give Imperial Family membership to male members of former branches in the paternal line. The Imperial House Law stipulates that only male family members in the paternal bloodline of the Imperial lineage can assume the Chrysanthemum Throne. END