Summary Manifesto of Liberal Democratic Party |
Ms Yuriko Koike’s manifesto, released upon announcing her candidacy for Liberal Democratic Party president, calls for a radical revitalization of Japan’s society and economy. Ms Koike locates six areas where she believes Japan’s potential strengths are being wasted or underutilized. These are the strength of regional Japan, economic, environmental, political, diplomatic strength, and the unique strengths of women. Ms Koike calls for boldly adhering to the path of reform, emphasizing the necessity of determination and political leadership. For regional Japan, Ms Koike calls for a revitalization of regional economies around a core of agricultural development, and stimulating both demand and consumption of domestic agricultural produce. Specific policies include up-scaling farm management to a corporate level, responsiveness to regional characteristics, promoting consumption of local produce, and fostering new industries, linking related areas such as environment, welfare, tourism, and education. Regarding local administration, Ms Koike calls for rationalization of systems for personnel affairs, salaries, and accounting, while delegating certain functions to the private sector. As a source of funding for localities, Ms Koike pledges that funds be channeled away from public works, such as roads, to the environment through promoting alternative energy sources and conservation, and social security, including family policies. Ms Koike advocates using local strengths and characteristics, including primary industry and tourism, as a selling point in marketing regional Japan to the nation and the world. Ms Koike also links devolution to education, advocating transfer of control over former national universities to the regions, while calling for moral education connecting children to the wider community. To recognize activities that contribute to the community, Ms Koike pledges to establish a more favorable tax system towards NPOs and other public interest organizations. Meanwhile, Ms Koike also calls for measures to prevent harm to communities from crime. With regard to the environment, Ms Koike calls for a concerted national effort to place Japan at the forefront of environmental protection, including the fight against global warming. Ms Koike sets concrete targets of 25% reductions in emissions by 2020 and 80% reductions by 2050. Ms Koike also presents specific environmental proposals including commercialization of Japan’s methane hydrate deposits, promotion of renewable energy such as solar power and geothermal electric power, and measures under the tax system. Linking environment to security, Ms Koike pledges to prioritize personal security in the face of natural disasters and global food shortages. In particular, Ms Koike pledges to increase the food self-sufficiency rate through promoting maintenance and active use of available agricultural land. Promoting local consumption and waste reduction are also key promises relating to the environment. Unleashing the potential of Japanese women’s strengths is another of Ms Koike’s major themes. Ms Koike pledges a drastic strengthening of family policies around the concept of engendering a sense of security towards the future. This includes support for the costs of childbirth and medical examinations for pregnant women, and work-life balance measures such as expansion of childcare facilities and childcare leave. Ms Koike’s vision for social security and labor reform extends beyond family policies towards a radical restructuring compatible with new social and work realities, including support for flexible employment conditions, merit-based remuneration, and radical restructuring of the Social Insurance Agency to ease anxiety over pensions. Specific reforms include addressing problems with record-keeping (including the introduction of social security numbers), shifting responsibility for fund management to the private sector, removing perverse disincentives in the social security and tax system towards women’s employment, and strengthening the collection of pension insurance premiums. With regard to economic strength, Ms Koike promises to introduce ‘household commonsense’ to the management of national finances, cutting bureaucratic waste and avoiding reliance on debt. Ms Koike pledges to continue the fiscal reforms introduced by the Koizumi administration, and avoid both issuing government bonds to cover debt and attempting to stimulate the economy through massive public spending. Ms Koike resolves to monitor the effects of regulation upon the economy and achieve steady annual economic growth above 2.5%. Through expanding export opportunities for small and medium business and revitalizing regional economies, Ms Koike hopes to allow Japanese citizens to experience the benefits of increased individual and household incomes. Ms Koike resolves to adhere to targets for fiscal expenditure to ensure that Japan’s budget is balanced by the year 2011. Ms Koike pledges to make cuts in wasteful expenditure, civil service salaries, and government assets before imposing new taxes. Ms Koike advocates releasing funds trapped in special government accounts, and pledges to return to citizens the fruits of structural reforms such as postal privatization and the sale of government assets. Ms Koike pledges to make drastic reforms to the tax system, including a switch to a carbon tax rather than petroleum taxes, and structuring national taxes around the principles of taxing the person in a graduated manner, based on capacity to pay. Alongside devolution, Ms Koike advocates assigning the consumption tax to regional bodies. Ms Koike also calls for reform of inheritance tax, reforming corporate taxation in line with international standards (such as reducing corporate taxes and abolishing taxes on fund managers) and relaxed treatment towards small and medium business. Ms Koike also pledges to create a tax system amenable to flow of capital between borders, to promote Japan as a hub for trade and tourism in Asia, and to privatize major universities to promote international competitiveness. With regard to Japan’s diplomatic strength, Ms Koike emphasizes Japan’s unique appeal, as an economically competitive nation with strong traditions of safety, security, quality, and integrity. Ms Koike pledges to enhance Japan’s leadership in international affairs through inviting international organizations to Japan. Ms Koike also advocates promotion of international tourism and business in Japan, and expanding the entry of foreign persons who have studied Japanese language and culture, or are seeking political refuge. With regard to security, Ms Koike pledges strong leadership on the abductees issue, and to establish a crisis management framework that can respond to diversification of the security environment, while emphasizing Japan’s unshakable alliance with United States. Arguing that a withdrawal from refueling activities in the Indian Ocean would be counter to Japan’s long-term national interest, Ms Koike pledges to continue this contribution to the shared fight of the international community against terror. Ms Koike argues that the secret to unleashing Japan’s political strength is to break down the power base of Japan’s bureaucracy, including reform of the civil service system, and administrative reform. Ms Koike vows to retain political control over the key areas of policy making, personnel deployment, and resource distribution. Ms Koike pledges to create a ‘national strategy staff’ under the Prime Minister and Cabinet to undertake policy planning under political leadership, and place responsibility for diplomacy and security with a National Security Council, and macro economic policy with the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. Ms Koike pledges that she will establish a Cabinet Personnel Affairs Bureau to exercise political leadership over personnel affairs. Ms Koike also pledges to rationalize the personnel affairs, organization, and administrative functions of the National Personnel authority, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Finance, with centralized authority in the Cabinet. Ms Koike vows to maintain political control over the budget towards robust and effective management of the budget process. Ms Koike also pledges to rid Japan of the outdated custom of retiring high-ranking government officials finding employment in private and semi-private industry. Ms Koike’s other major administrative proposals are first, to preside over the creation of a new state system to group regional areas into larger administrative units as a key plank of devolution, alongside transferring the consumption tax to these units. This will entail radical reorganization of the national civil service. Second, Ms Koike pledges to reduce the number of national parliamentary representatives from 722 persons to below 500, and create a unicameral system through amalgamating the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors.
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