Extraordinary Diet Session May be Convened on Oct. 26: LDP Official

October 3, 2018

Tokyo- An extraordinary session of the Diet, Japan's parliament, may be convened on Oct. 26, Hiroshi Moriyama, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Diet Affairs Committee, suggested on Wednesday.

Moriyama told reporters that the date will be a benchmark for the timing.

He also suggested that the Diet session may close in early December at the latest.

"Having the Diet still in session on Dec. 10 or later would have a major impact on work to compile a budget for the next fiscal year," which will begin in April 2019, he said.

In the first meeting of his new cabinet launched on Tuesday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed the members to draw up a supplementary budget for fiscal 2018 with the aim of speeding up restoration work after recent natural disasters, including a massive earthquake that rocked the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido last month.

The government hopes to have the additional budget enacted during the extraordinary Diet session.

The prime minister has also expressed his willingness to submit to the session a bill drawn up by the LDP for revising the country's constitution.

Earlier on Wednesday, Moriyama held talks with Kiyomi Tsujimoto, his counterpart in the major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Tsujimoto sought the early convocation of an extraordinary Diet session and the compilation of a supplementary budget. Moriyama promised to convey the requests to the government.

While Tsujimoto asked for sufficient time for deliberations by the budget committees of both Diet chambers, Moriyama said he will leave the committees' boards to decide on the matter.

Speaking to reporters, Tsujimoto said she wants to seek explanations from Abe on his positions about constitutional amendment and other issues during the upcoming Diet session. She also showed eagerness to find out whether the members of Abe's new cabinet, formed on Tuesday, are competent as ministers, apparently because 12 of the 19 members are first-timers. Jiji Press