11/24/2007THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
After failing to win over opposition parties, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is set to raise the stakes by pushing through legislation in the Diet to resume Japan's anti-terrorism mission in the Indian Ocean, sources said.
Fukuda met separately with the leaders of five political parties Thursday. As expected, the opposition party leaders said they could not support the special measures bill to allow the Maritime Self-Defense Force to resume its refueling mission to vessels fighting terrorism in Afghanistan.
The government is now prepared to resubmit the bill to the Lower House and pass it into law with the support of two-thirds of the members of that house.
The government and the ruling coalition apparently have countermeasures in store for their opponents' tactics in the Upper House, where the opposition parties collectively hold a majority.
But resubmitting the bill to the Lower House, where the ruling coalition commands a strong majority, may not sit well with the public, which remains split over Japan's support in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.
Fukuda recently indicated he would do everything to pass the bill, including making such a promise to U.S. President George W. Bush in a meeting in Washington on Nov. 16.
But the government does not want to give the impression that it is bulldozing the bill through the Diet, particularly with the possibility of a Lower House election next year.
Fukuda's meetings with the opposition party leaders were held apparently to show that the government is not acting in a heavy-handed manner.
"If after again asking the opposition parties for their cooperation, the effort ends in failure, then the public will not think that the bill was railroaded through the Diet," an aide to Fukuda said.
The bill easily passed the Lower House on Nov. 13, but deliberations have yet to begin in the Upper House.
The government's first step in getting the legislation resubmitted to the Lower House is to push through a second extension of the current extraordinary Diet session.
The session's close has already been moved back once, from the original Nov. 10 until Dec. 15.
Although the Upper House plans to start deliberating the special measures bill on Wednesday, a Dec. 15 end to the session will not provide enough time for the opposition-controlled Upper House to go through the motions of defeating the bill.
The opposition parties appear focused on Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga and his relations with an arrested former executive of a defense contractor now under fire. Although Nukaga has denied any shady ties, questioning by the opposition parties in the Diet could delay debate on the special measures bill.
Sources said the government would make a final decision on the length of the second Diet extension in early December after gauging how much time would be needed.
An extension that runs to mid-January would allow the government to use the so-called 60-day rule. Any bill passed in the Lower House that is not acted upon by the Upper House within 60 days of being sent to that chamber is considered rejected by the Upper House.
After the 60-day period, the government could resubmit the rejected bill to the Lower House for passage into law with a two-thirds majority.
Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), the main opposition party, has not backed down from its threat to submit a censure motion in the Upper House against Fukuda if the government resubmits the bill to the Lower House.
Government officials, including Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, were laying the groundwork for ignoring passage of the censure motion by arguing that it was not binding, like a no-confidence motion passed in the Lower House.(IHT/Asahi: November 24,2007)
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