April 08 2010 11:27
TOKYO, April 8 KYODO
The new party to be launched Saturday by former Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano, former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma and other like-minded lawmakers has left others unsure about what it hopes to pursue and what it can accomplish due to its perceived lack of freshness and ambiguous policy orientation.
With a House of Councillors election slated for this summer, possibly in July, the question is whether the party can put forward material that can mask heavy undertones of the once-dominant but now opposition Liberal Democratic Party, to which every founding member belonged or has belonged for most of their political careers.
It has not helped that the party's prospective members are nearly 70 years old on average, a fact that has led some observers to describe the group as ''a seniors' party'' and that will not easily be lost on many voters looking for freshness.
The new party, to be called ''Tachiagare Nippon'' (Stand Up, Japan), had difficulties securing five lawmakers as its founding members -- a requirement to qualify as a political party -- after many had second thoughts about joining the bandwagon partly because of a lack of clarity over its policy and philosophy.
Only after Hiranuma ''pleaded with'' Yoshio Nakagawa, an LDP upper house member who had been expected to retire at the end of his term this summer, to lend his name did they manage to secure the fifth member needed for the group to be eligible to receive subsidies and other benefits under law, according to informed lawmakers.
''That I want to continue to work with (Hiranuma) is the only reason'' for leaving the LDP to join the new party, Nakagawa told reporters on Wednesday after submitting a letter of resignation to an LDP executive.
Nakagawa and Hiranuma have had close ties, not the least because the former is a younger brother of Ichiro Nakagawa, a former agriculture minister for whom the latter served as a secretary before running for office.
One of the biggest factors that have made the party's future uncertain is that Hiranuma and Yosano, whose policy preferences and philosophy are said to be poles apart, will be working together as the group's pillars.
While Hiranuma is widely seen as a diehard conservative who is inclined toward using public spending to stimulate the economy, Yosano is considered as a moderate who places great importance on fiscal discipline.
An LDP member advised Yosano earlier this week to add a more liberal tone to the movement, while LDP upper house member Yoshitada Konoike, who temporarily considered joining the new party, told reporters that he cannot work with people with a ''different philosophy and view of the state'' -- an apparent reference to Yosano.
At a meeting of LDP lawmakers studying fiscal rehabilitation on Wednesday, Yosano told fellow group members that he intends to carry the group's spirit and philosophy over to the new party.
He also expressed his resolve to face off against Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan from a non-LDP standpoint, telling the members, ''Even though we are launching a new party, I will stick to opposing the DPJ thoroughly'' but act independently of the LDP.
''I want you to know that I will work hard to sacrifice myself,'' Yosano added.
Despite his bravado, it remains unclear whether the new party can assert itself as an attractive alternative to the DPJ or the LDP in the upcoming election or whether it can encourage more defections from the LDP.
Responses have so far been less than positive, at least among lawmakers.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Yoshimi Watanabe, a former LDP member who heads his own small party called ''Your Party,'' caricatured the new party as a withering plant, alluding to its lineup of veteran lawmakers.
''To stand up, it better have youthful power,'' he said.
==Kyodo
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