Riichiro Maeki
The Democratic Party of Japan announced its manifesto on Monday for the upcoming House of Representatives election.
A briefing held at the party headquarters that morning was crowded with news reporters, as was a press conference in a Tokyo hotel in the afternoon. Copies of the manifesto prepared for the press disappeared in a flash.
Many people with a connection to the political world sensed this was a dramatic change and, naturally, I myself felt so, too.
With the greatest respect to the DPJ, far less attention has been paid to its manifestos in the past since many observers had the impression that they were little more than pie-in-the-sky ideas presented by a party destined to stay in opposition. Copies of DPJ manifestos used to remain piled high with few takers.
It is almost hard to believe that the DPJ could face a deluge of requests from all directions from people wanting copies of its manifesto as is the case at the moment. DPJ candidates scheduled to stand in the lower house election are no doubt overjoyed at being similarly bombarded with requests for the manifesto.
This is the third time the DPJ has released a manifesto for a lower house election, following the polls of 2003 and 2005. For House of Councillors elections, the DPJ issued manifestos in 2004 and 2007.
The biggest difference from past elections is the growing possibility of a power shift. As the likelihood increases that the DPJ will take power, so the policies proposed in its manifesto come closer to being acted upon. Because the latest manifesto is full of rosy proposals, including toll-free highways, free public high school education and monthly child-raising allowances worth \26,000 per child, it is only to be expected that everybody wants to read it.
Though the Liberal Democratic Party has issued manifestos over the years, they have rarely attracted much attention.
Indeed, the very idea of contesting an election using manifestos was first seriously urged by the DPJ, and if anything the LDP has been far from enthusiastic about this approach.
In addition, the public has increasingly felt a strong sense of distrust toward the LDP's election pledges, believing them merely to be promises to be ignored and forgotten once an election is over.
At the same time, many members of the public have started to see a hitherto unrecognized attractiveness in having the DPJ hold the reins of power.
The public seems to believe that as the DPJ has emphasized the importance of manifestos so much, the party might actually make an effort to carry out its pledges to a certain degree.
With all due to the LDP, can it not be said that the expectations generated by the DPJ's manifesto and the hopes raised of a possible shift of power are a result of the LDP's repeated failure in the past to live up to the expectations it created?
The LDP has slammed the DPJ's manifesto by questioning how it will secure revenue sources for its spending plans.
The DPJ wrote in its manifesto: "The funding required is \16.8 trillion. To finance these policies, \9.1 trillion will be secured by reforming government expenditure by eliminating wasteful spending among other measures; \5 trillion will be found from 'buried treasure' [surplus funds in special accounts]; and \2.7 trillion from a review of special taxation measures."
These measures for securing the necessary funds have been slammed as unrealistic, but at least the DPJ has clarified what policies will be implemented and when, and how they will be funded.
The very fact that criticism has been leveled at the DPJ's ideas makes it clear that voters have become increasingly conscious about the funding of government spending. But when it comes to the government's revenue sources, essentially there's only really taxation.
What I would like to see is policy debate in the election campaign on tax burdens and the way taxpayers' money is spent so that the public pays more attention to these issues and the level of Japanese politics is enhanced.
Maeki is a deputy political news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
(Aug. 1, 2009)
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