Despite heated debate between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan over which is the real champion of reform, both parties would pursue the ongoing fiscal reconsolidation the same way, a key member of the government's deregulation panel said.

"What the LDP and DPJ aim to do are basically the same -- only the process is different," said Naohiro Yashiro, a member of the Council for the Promotion of Regulatory Reform and a visiting scholar of economics at International Christian University in western Tokyo.

Both parties have said they plan to curb the government's swelling budget deficit.