Ruling Bloc Gives Up Early Lower House Passage of Casino Bill

June 15, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's ruling coalition has given up its plan to get a casino introduction bill through the House of Representatives this week, as the opposition camp submitted a no-confidence motion against tourism minister Keiichi Ishii on Thursday, informed sources said.

In the motion, the opposition camp argued that Ishii is trying to push through the bill, designed to introduce casino-featured integrated resorts, although the public's understanding of the bill is not yet adequate.

Ishii is the second minister from Komeito, the junior coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party, to face a no-confidence motion, after then Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Chikara Sakaguchi in 2004, according to Lower House secretariat officials and other sources.

The latest motion is the opposition's second attempt to block a vote on the bill. The previous one, which called for dismissing Daishiro Yamagiwa of the LDP from the post of chairman of the Lower House Committee on Cabinet, which handles the bill, was voted down at a Lower House plenary meeting on Thursday.

The ruling coalition had initially aimed to have the Lower House committee vote on the bill on Wednesday, but was forced to postpone the committee vote until Friday at the earliest, due to the dismissal motion, submitted by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other major opposition parties on Tuesday.

In the face of the additional motion, the ruling bloc now aims to get the casino bill at least through the committee on Friday, after killing the motion at a plenary Lower House meeting earlier in the day.

At an executive meeting of the committee on Thursday, Chairman Yamagiwa decided by his authority to hold a meeting of the panel on Friday.

With the opposition camp eyeing a third motion, to dismiss the LDP's Keiji Furuya from chairman of the Lower House steering committee, the full chamber is unlikely to vote on the casino bill by Tuesday, the day before the currently scheduled end of the ongoing ordinary session of the Diet, Japan's parliament.

The ruling coalition plans to extend the session, aiming for enactment of the bill during the session. The bill will be sent to the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, after clearing the Lower House.

Major opposition parties renewed their cooperation against the casino bill, at a meeting of their Diet affairs chiefs on Thursday.

"We'll continue to demand (the ruling coalition) refrain from voting (on the bill)," Kiyomi Tsujimoto of the CDPJ told reporters. Jiji Press