Following the Diet's enactment last week of a legislative package covering the updated guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation, the Lower House on Tuesday passed bills that will allow wiretapping in investigations into organized crime. The administration of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has thus cleared the major legislative hurdles in the current Diet session, now in its final phase.
The Japanese political community is abuzz with speculation about the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election, the No. 2 opposition party New Komeito's increasingly close ties with the alliance of the LDP and the Liberal Party, and the timing of a Lower House dissolution for a snap general election.
Still pending in the Diet are important legislative packages, including one for restructuring the central bureaucracy, but they are not attracting much attention because they do not involve power struggles. More attention is focused on proposals to modify the public nursing-care insurance law, which will be implemented next April. An increased financial burden on the public in connection with the insurance could hurt the LDP in the election.