The Yomiuri Shimbun
Prime Minister Naoto Kan's recent request for Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki to join the Cabinet has provoked a backlash from the largest opposition party, which views Kan's move as an effort to use the national crisis to support the survival of his administration.
The LDP intends to keep a certain distance from the Kan administration and offer its support only by making proposals regarding measures to cope with the calamity of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami through such channels as a joint disaster countermeasure conference of the government and political parties, sources said.
Immediately before an urgent meeting of LDP executives Saturday evening, LDP Vice President Tadamori Oshima got a phone call from a ruling party lawmaker who asked him to join Kan's administration.
Oshima flatly refused, saying: "You leave the Cabinet! I've been telling you since last year that I won't join."
At the meeting, the executives complained about Kan's de facto request, made abruptly and over the phone, to form a coalition.
One of the executives reportedly said, "The Democratic Party of Japan has to back away from its handout policies first--this is the condition for us to join a coalition."
However, the overall sentiment at the meeting was that they were not even willing to consider joining the Cabinet, given they have yet to receive offers of policy coordination from the DPJ.
Since the time immediately following the massive earthquake, Tanigaki and those around him have been wary of a possible offer that Kan would make to form a grand coalition.
"[We believed] Kan was eventually going come and ask the LDP to join in a coalition in the hopes of revamping the foundation of his own administration," said one of Tanigaki's aides.
Tanigaki has in mind the possibility of forming a grand coalition after the next House of Representatives election, but has long been opposed to joining forces with the current Kan administration, the sources said.
The barrier that separates the LDP and the Kan administration is based on more than policy differences. The LDP sees that partnership with the DPJ will work negatively in unified local elections in April.
The LDP also distrusts Kan himself.
"The prime minister may pass the buck to us as he has been blamed for a series of gaffes in the nuclear accident, among other problems," a senior LDP official said.
At a press conference after Saturday's meeting of executives, Tanigaki expressed strong doubts over how serious Kan was in making the offer. "It's not like I'd say, 'OK,' during a telephone conversation in a call that came out of the blue," Tanigaki said.
Some LDP members are increasingly cautious, with one party member saying, "The prime minister's request was a curve ball that he threw toward the LDP, trying to knock the party off balance."
They believe so because if the LDP turns down the request, the public would likely become critical of the LDP by blaming the party for not supporting the disaster countermeasures.
"For us to be called 'uncooperative' is an unwelcome statement. We will do all we can for the disaster countermeasures," LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Shigeru Ishiba said Saturday.
However, it is too soon to completely rule out the possibility of LDP participation in a grand coalition, observers said. Some LDP members are positive about a partnership with the DPJ. Former LDP Secretary General Koichi Kato apparently tried to act as a mediator between Kan and Tanigaki this time.
Some in the LDP leadership also have not ruled out the possibility. One top party official said it might be possible on the precondition that Kan steps down.
"Disaster countermeasures will be protracted. There'll be a possibility of a grand coalition emerging after the enactment of a supplementary budget for fiscal 2011," the official said.
Meanwhile, other opposition parties on Saturday condemned the idea of forming a DPJ-LDP coalition.
"For [Kan] to seek a playmaker in dealing with the quake disaster from an opposition party comes without warning," New Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi said.
Your Party leader Yoshimi Watanabe said, "Emergency responses will be neglected" in such a situation.
Said New Renaissance Party leader Yoichi Masuzoe: "No one in their right mind would take such a proposal seriously."
(Mar. 21, 2011)
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