Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's oft-repeated slogan, "There will be no economic recovery without structural reforms," sounds familiar to most Japanese.
During the recent Upper House election campaign, opposition leaders criticized Koizumi's reform plans for lacking specifics. They also charged that it was the long governing Liberal Democratic Party, now headed by Koizumi, that has delayed reforms, and that the proposed reforms would impose pain on underprivileged people.
Despite the criticisms, the LDP coasted to a landslide election victory. The Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party, the most vocal critics of the reforms, saw their Upper House strengths reduced in half.