Tokyo, September 02: Japan groped its way on Wednesday toward a rare handover of power as the untested Democratic Party sought to firm up a coalition with tiny partners after its stunning weekend election victory.
Yukio Hatoyama, whose decade-old Democrat Party of Japan (DPJ) beat the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by a landslide in Sunday’s general election, will be voted in as premier on Sept. 16 and should form his cabinet soon after.
DPJ Secretary-General Katsuya Okada met the top aide to outgoing Prime Minister Taro Aso and requested that government ministries help ensure a smooth transition. It is only the second time the LDP has lost power since its founding in 1955.
Aso later instructed the aide, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, to cooperate in the handover, Kyodo news agency said.
“Unlike the United States and United Kingdom, we do not have any rules for a handover, so this is the first step,” Kawamura told reporters before the meeting with Okada.
“For the sake of the country, I think we should cooperate fully with the new administration.”
The DPJ made curbing the clout of bureaucrats who have long controlled policy-making a key election promise, but also needs their cooperation to implement programmes such as putting more money in the hands of households.
Hatoyama, the wealthy grandson of a former premier, has a lot on his plate as he prepares to form the first non-LDP government since 1993, when ruling party rebels bolted and triggered a chain reaction that replaced the LDP for a mere 10 months.
Reviving the economy is one key challenge, with unemployment at a record high and investors worried about deflation and whether the new government will raise spending and further increase Japan’s soaring public debt.
U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE
Managing relations with the United States, Tokyo’s closest security ally, is also high on the agenda as Hatoyama seeks to chart a new course more independent of Washington without damaging an alliance long at the core of Japan’s diplomacy.
The Democrats have said they want to reexamine an agreement governing U.S. military forces in Japan and a deal under which about 8,000 Marines would be redeployed from the southern island of Okinawa to Guam and a Marine Corps air base would be shifted to a less populated part of the island.
New U.S. ambassador to Japan John Roos said in an interview with National Public Radio the deals were not negotiable.
“Just to make it abundantly clear, both the United states and Japan, at the government-to-government level, have made it absolutely clear that these agreements have been signed, agreed to, and are going forward,” Roos said.
The DPJ has said it wants to move the air base off Okinawa, where many residents feel they shoulder an unfair share of the burden for the security alliance.
Hatoyama will head to the United States soon after forming his cabinet to make his diplomatic debut at a U.N. General Assembly meeting and a G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Japanese media said he would also hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama.
The U.S.-educated Hatoyama raised eyebrows in Washington with a recent essay in which he attacked the “unrestrained market fundamentalism” of U.S.-led globalisation. He sought to play down those comments on Monday, saying he was not anti-American.
The Democrats also need to firm up a proposed coalition with two tiny partners on the left and the right, whose cooperation is needed to keep control of parliament’s less powerful upper house, which can delay legislation and stymie policy.
The DPJ and its allies won control of the upper house in 2007.
Social Democratic Party representatives were to meet later on Wednesday to discuss their stance toward the expected coalition.
The three parties agreed on some common policies ahead of the election, but have shied away from discussions of security matters, where large gaps loom.
—–Agencies