Japan's Democrats offer polls in 'near future' to save tax plan

Reuters via Chicago Tribune ^ | August 7, 2012 | Yuko Yoshikawa and Tetsushi Kajimoto

[SunkenCiv]

Japan's ruling Democrats on Wednesday offered to call an election in the "near future" to save their sales tax increase plan after the opposition demanded a commitment to early polls in return for backing the bill in an upper house vote.

The opposition has yet to formally respond to the pledge, but first reactions suggested it was too vague.

"(Noda) will go to the people in the near future when the bill is enacted," Fumio Kishida, parliamentary affairs chief for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), quoted his Democrat counterpart as saying.

It is the first time the Democrats have made such a pledge, but Kishida told reporters it was not enough.

"We won't be satisfied with promise of 'near future'."

LDP number two Nobuteru Ishihara said nothing short of an immediate election would do.

Elections are not due until August 2013 and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democrats have long resisted demands to bring them forward, with opinion polls showing they would lose badly.

The passage of the plan to double the sales tax by 2015 had appeared assured after the Democrats and two main opposition parties struck a deal in June and passed it in the lower house.

But several fringe parties filed censure and no-confidence motions against Noda and his cabinet on Tuesday and the LDP seized the opportunity to pile on more pressure.

It threatened to file its own censure and no-confidence motions against him and his government, which would effectively block the tax vote and deem the June deal void -- unless the Democrats agreed to bring forward general elections.

[SunkenCiv]

It's remarkable that people who don't speak English expect to be accepted as anything besides the astroturf that they are when they hold up English-language signs for the cameras. Can't use the Getty image though, so visit the Chi-Trib original to see what I mean. Here's a Reuters shot that will work. Odd that this is the shot used, since the story is from Reuters. Must have been an accident.

Housewives protest a tax hike, nuclear energy, and a free-trade pact [Photograph by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters]

[SunkenCiv]

This is some more partisan media shill spinnin’ to suggest that these protesters are just like the Tea Party.

[GraceG]

The Liberals in Japan are far far better than the liberals in America....

[GraceG]

The “Liberal Deomocrat Party” in Japan is actually Centre-Right if I am not mistaken.