INTERVIEW: Voters face choice between stability, confusion, Komeito says

July 9, 2019

Tokyo--The July 21 House of Councillors election is an opportunity for Japanese voters to choose between stable government and confusion, Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi said in a recent interview.

"As a ruling party, we hope to tackle key challenges at home and abroad after securing government stability," said Yamaguchi, who heads the party that allies with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Komeito shares the election goal presented by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also the LDP's president, who has pledged to get the ruling camp to maintain a majority in the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament.

On the consumption tax hike slated for October, Yamaguchi referred to a related deal in 2012 among the then ruling Democratic Party of Japan, the LDP and Komeito.

He argued that the current opposition to the tax hike by former members of the now-defunct DPJ, including executives of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, is a "great betrayal of the public."

"The consumption tax is fundamentally significant as a stable source of government revenue for improving social security services," Yamaguchi stressed.

He said Komeito aims to gain voters' understanding for the tax hike from the current 8 pct to 10 pct, by sincerely explaining measures to alleviate its impact, including special shopping vouchers, as well as a 10 pct cut in annual allowances for lawmakers.

Yamaguchi defended the country's public pension system as "stable" after the government came under fire for a recent Financial Services Agency panel report estimating the minimum necessary savings for postretirement life at 20 million yen per couple.

Meanwhile, he cast a skeptical eye toward Abe's pitch for constitutional reform as a key issue in the Upper House election, saying that it is "unlikely to appeal to voters."

Komeito takes a position of adding new provisions if necessary without changing the basic principles of the current constitution.

"There are various ideas about including new values in the constitution, but none of them are ripe enough for a proposal to the people," Yamaguchi said. Jiji Press